at 


ON a eae Moty, OF Wowie dan Keane, algo "aS by debe tag ye 
i almewiyges teeny ah yy A nile dpa Ronueral,. , wala, ~ Sa A Fy ket esa: 
: i : Sails nase neatie cpa ied ate en ta i a Meee gu Ana aE ial nabige i ln aa Ri enecirgs 
; : : : ag set seaahne Cte nd ened, 2 i AR Mi redded PR oD pag t oncnpath tal g ge ee 

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ees a pn ie 
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teats 
Fairies 


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sitet ean et ? 
Ne? ORR pat Senet Pram 


U May: 
© Fei TaN 15 
Received by bequest from 
Albert H. Lybyer 
Professor of History 
University of Illinois 
1916-1949 


Sel, 
264 





UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRAR 
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JUL 22 1997 


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LIFE’S HANDICAP 





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Life’s Handicap 


Being Stories of Mine 
Own People 


By Rudyard Kipling 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 


1924 





CopyRIGHT, 1891, 
By MACMILLAN AND CO. 





CopyRIGHT, 1899, 


By RUDYARD KIPLING 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 





PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 








PREFACE 


In Northern India stood a monastery called The Chub4ra 
of Dhunni Bhagat. No one remembered who or what 
Dhunni Bhagat had been. He had lived his life, made a 
little money and spent it all, as every good Hindu should 
do, on a work of piety—the Chubara. That was full of . 
brick cells, gaily painted with the figures of Gods and 
kings and elephants, where worn-out priests could sit and 
meditate on the latter end of things; the paths were brick 
paved, and the naked feet of thousands had worn them 
into gutters. Clumps of mangoes sprouted from between 
the bricks; great pipal trees overhung the well-windlass 
that whined all day; and hosts of parrots tore through the 
trees. Crows and squirrels were tame in that place, for 
they knew that never a priest would touch them. 

The wandering mendicants, charm-sellers, and holy 
vagabonds for a hundred miles round used to make the 
Chubara their place of call and rest. Mahomedan, Sikh, 
and Hindu mixed equally under the trees. They were old 
men, and when man has come to the turnstiles of Night 
all the creeds in the world seem to him wonderfully alike 
and colourless. 

Gobind the one-eyed told me this. He was a holy man 
who lived on an island in the middle of a river and fed the 
fishes with little bread pellets twice a day. In flood-time, 
when swollen corpses stranded themselves at the foot of 
the island, Gobind would cause them to be piously burned, 
for the sake of the honour of mankind, and having regard 


Vil 


viii PREFACE 


to his own account with God hereafter. But when two- 
thirds of the island was torn away in a spate, Gobind 
came across the river to Dhunni Bhagat’s Chubara, he 
and his brass drinking vessel with the well-cord round 
the neck, his short arm-rest crutch studded with brass 
nails, his roll of bedding, his big pipe, his umbrella, and 
his tall sugar-loaf hat with the nodding peacock feathers 
in it. He wrapped himself up in his patched quilt made 
of every colour and material in the world, sat down in a 
sunny corner of the very quiet Chubara, and, resting his 
arm on his short-handled crutch, waited for death. The 
people brought him food and little clumps of marigold 
flowers, and he gave his blessing in return. He was 
nearly blind, and his face was seamed and lined and 
wrinkled beyond belief, for he had lived in his time which 
was before the English came within five hundred miles 
of Dhunni Bhagat’s Chubara. 

When we grew to know each other well, Gobind would 
tell me tales in a voice most like the rumbling of heavy 
guns over a wooden bridge. His tales were true, but not 
one in twenty could be printed in an English book, be- 
cause the English do not think as natives do. They 
brood over matters that a native would dismiss till a 
fitting occasion; and what they would not think twice 
about a native will brood over till a fitting occasion: then 
native and English stare at each other hopelessly across 
great gulfs of miscomprehension. 

‘And what,’ said Gobind one Sunday evening, ‘is your 
honoured craft, and by what manner of means earn you 
your daily bread?’ 

‘I am,’ said I, ‘a kerani—one who writes with a pen 
upon paper, not being in the service of the Government.’ 

‘Then what do you write?’ said Gobind. ‘Come nearer, 
for I cannot see your countenance, and the light fails.’ 


PREFACE ix 


‘I write of all matters that lie within my understand- 
ing, and of many that do not. But chiefly I write of Life 
and Death, and men and women, and Love and Fate 
according to the measure of my ability, telling the tale 
through the mouths of one, two, or more people. Then 
by the favour of God the tales are sold and money accrues 
to me that I may keep alive.’ 

‘Even so,’ said Gobind. ‘That is the work of the 
bazar story-teller; but he speaks straight to men and 
women and does not write anything at all. Only when 
the tale has aroused expectation, and calamities are about 
to befall the virtuous, he stops suddenly and demands 
payment ere he continues the narration. Is it so in your 
craft, my son?’ 

‘I have heard of such things when a tale is of great 
length, and is sold as a cucumber, in small pieces.’ 

‘Ay, I was once a famed teller of stories when I was 
begging on the road between Koshin and Etra; before the 
last pilgrimage that ever I took to Orissa. I told many 
tales and heard many more at the rest-houses in the 
evening when we were merry at the end of the march. 
It is in my heart that grown men are but as little children 
in the matter of tales, and the oldest tale is the most be- 
loved.’ | 

“With your people that is truth,’ said I. ‘But in re- 
gard to our people they desire new tales, and when all is 
written they rise up and declare that the tale were better 
told in such and such a manner, and doubt either the 
truth or the invention thereof.’ 

‘But what folly is theirs!’ said Gobind, throwing out 
his knotted hand. ‘A tale that is told is a true tale as 
long as the telling lasts. And of their talk upon it—you 
know how Bilas Khan, that was the prince of tale- 
tellers, said to one who mocked him in the great rest- 


x PREFACE 


house on the Jhelum road: ‘‘Go on, my brother, and 
finish that I have begun,” and he who mocked took up 
the tale, but having neither voice nor manner for the task 
came to a standstill, and the pilgrims at supper made 
him eat abuse and stick half that night.’ 

‘Nay, but with our people, money having passed, it is 
their right; as we should turn against a shoeseller in 
regard to shoes if those wore out. If ever I make a book 
you shall see and judge.’ 

‘And the parrot said to the falling tree, Wait, brother, 
till I fetch a prop!’ said Gobind with a grim chuckle. 
‘God has given me eighty years, and it may be some over. 
I cannot look for more than day granted by day and asa 
favour at this tide. Be swift.’ 

‘In what manner is it best to set about the task,’ 
said I, ‘O chiefest of those who string pearls with their 
tongue?’ | 

‘How do I know? Yet’—he thought for a little— 
‘how should I not know? God has made very many 
heads, but there is only one heart in all the world among 
your people or my people. They are children in the 
matter of tales.’ 

“But none are so terrible as the little ones, if a man 
misplace a word, or in a second telling vary events by sa 
much as one small devil.’ 

‘Ay, I also have told tales to the little ones, but da 
thou this His old eyes fell on the gaudy paintings 
of the wall, the blue and red dome, and the flames of the 
poinsettias beyond. ‘Tell them first of those things that 
thou hasta en and they have seen together. Thus their 
knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell them 
of what thou alone hast seen, then what thou hast heard, 
and since they be children tell them of battles and kings, 
horses, devils, elephants, and angels, but omit not to tell 





PREFACE xi 


them of love and suchlike. All the earth is full of tales 
to him who listens and does not drive away the poor 
from his door. The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for 
they must lay their ear to the ground every night.’ 

After this conversation the idea grew in my head, and 
Gobind was pressing in his inquiries as to the health of 
the book. 

Later, when we had been parted for months, it hap- 
pened that I was to go away and far off, and I came to 
bid Gobind good-bye. | 

‘It is farewell between us now, for I go a very long 
‘journey,’ I said. 

‘And I also. A longer one than thou. But what of 
the book?’ said he. 

‘It will be born in due season if it is so ordained.’ 

‘I would I could see it,’ said the old man, huddling 
beneath his quilt. ‘But that will not be. I die three 
days hence, in the night, a little before the dawn. The 
term of my years is accomplished.’ 

In nine cases out of ten a native makes no miscalcula- 
tion as to the day of his death. He has the foreknowl- 
edge of the beasts in this respect. 

‘Then thou wilt depart in peace, and it is good talk, 
for thou hast said that life is no delight to thee.’ 

‘But it is a pity that our book is not born. How 
shall I know that there is any record of my name?’ 

‘Because I promise, in the forepart of the book, pre- 
ceding everything else, that it shall be written, Gobind, 
sadhu, of the island in the river and awaiting God in 
Dhunni Bhagat’s Chubara, first spoke of the book,’ said 
L. 

‘And gave counsel—an old man’s counsel. Gobind, 
son of Gobind of the Chumi village in the Karaon tehsil, 
in the district of Mooltan. Will that be written also?’ 


xii PREFACE 


‘That will be written also.’ 

‘And the book will go across the Black Water to the 
houses of your people, and all the Sahibs will know of 
me who am eighty years old?’ 

‘All who read the book shall know. I cannot promise 
for the rest.’ 

‘That is good talk. Call aloud to all who are in the 
monastery, and I will tell them this thing.’ 

They trooped up, faguirs, sadhus, sunnyasis, byragis, 
nihangs, and mullahs, priests of all faiths and every 
degree of raggedness, and Gobind, leaning upon his 
crutch, spoke so that they were visibly filled with envy, 
and a white-haired senior bade Gobind think of his 
latter end instead of transitory repute in the mouths 
of strangers. Then Gobind gave me his blessing and 
IT came away. 

These tales have been collected from all places, and all 
sorts of people, from priests in the Chubara, from Ala 
Yar the carver, Jiwun Singh the carpenter, nameless 
men on steamers and trains round the world, women 
spinning outside their cottages in the twilight, officers 
and gentlemen now dead and buried, and a few, but 
these are the very best, my father gave me. The greater 
part of them have been published in magazines and news- 
papers, to whose editors I am indebted; but some are new 
on this side of the water, and some have not seen the 
light before. 

The most remarkable stories are, of course, those which 
do not appear—for obvious reasons. 


CONTENTS 


THE LANG MEN 0’ LARUT 
REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG 
THE WANDERING JEW. 

‘THROUGH THE FIRE 

THE FINANCES OF THE GODS 

‘THE AMIR’S HOMILY 

JEWS IN SHUSHAN . 

THe LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG 
LITLLE TOBRAH 

BUBBLING WELL RoapD 

‘THE City oF DREADFUL NIGHT’ 
GEORGIE PORGIE 

NABOTH 

THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 
‘THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 
‘THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 

On GREENHOW HI 

THE MAN WHO Was . 

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT . 
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 


xiii 


PAGE 


xiv . CONTENTS 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 
THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 
THE MARK OF THE BEAST 

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 

NAmGAY DOOLA 

BERTRAN AND BIMI 

Motr GuJ—MuvtTINEER 


PAGE 
244 
270 
204. 
att 
326 
340 
347 


THE LANG MEN O’ LARUT! 


Tue Chief Engineer’s sleeping suit was of yellow striped 
with blue, and his speech was the speech of Aberdeen. 
They sluiced the deck under him, and he hopped on to 
the ornamental capstan, a black pipe between his teeth, 
chough the hour was not seven of the morn. 

‘Did you ever hear o’ the Lang Men o’ Larut?’ he 
asked when the Man from Orizava had finished a story 
of an aboriginal giant discovered in the wilds of Brazil. 
There was never story yet passed the lips of teller, but 
the Man from Orizava could cap it. 

‘No, we never did,’ we responded with one voice. The 
Man from Orizava watched the Chief keenly, as a possible 
rival. 

‘I’m not telling the story for the sake of talking 
merely,’ said the Chief, ‘but as a warning against bet- 
ting, unless you bet on a perrfect certainty. The Lang 
Men o’ Larut were just a certainty. I have had 
talk wi’ them. Now Larut, you will understand, is a 
dependency, or it may be an outlying possession, o’ the 
island o’ Penang, and there they will get you tin and 
manganese, an’ it mayhap mica, and all manner oO’ 
meenerals. Larut is a great place.’ 

‘But what about the population?’ said the Man from 
Orizava. 

‘The population,’ said the Chief slowly, ‘were few 
but enorrmous. You must understand that, exceptin’ 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcmitLan & Co. 
> 


4 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the tin-mines, there is no special inducement to Euro- 
peans to reside in Larut. The climate is warm and 
remarkably like the climate o’ Calcutta; and in regard 
to Calcutta, it cannot have escaped your obsairvation 
that , 

‘Calcutta isn’t Larut; and we’ve only just come 
from it,’ protested the Man from Orizava. ‘There’s a 
meteorological department in Calcutta, too.’ 

‘Ay, but there’s no meteorological department in 
Larut. Each man is a law to himself. Some drink 
whisky, and some drink brandipanee, and some drink 
cocktails—vara bad for the coats o’ the stomach is a 
cocktail—and some drink sangaree, so I have been 
credibly informed; but one and all they sweat like the 
packing of a piston-head on a fourrteen-days’ voyage 
with the screw racing half her time. But, as I was say- 
ing, the population o’ Larut was five all told of English 
—that is to say, Scotch—an’ I’m Scotch, ye know,’ said 
the Chief. 

The Man from Orizava lit another cigarette, and 
waited patiently. It was hopeless to hurry the Chief 
Engineer. 

‘I am not pretending to account for the population o’ 
Larut being laid down according to such fabulous dimen- 
sions. O’ the five white men engaged upon the extrac- 
tion o’ tin ore and mercantile pursuits, there were three 
o’ the sons o’ Anak. Wait while remember. Lammit- 
ter was the first by two inches—a giant in the land, an’ a 
terreefic man to cross in his ways. From heel to head he 
was six feet nine inches, and proportionately built across 
and through the thickness of his body. Six good feet 
nine inches—an overbearin’ man. Next to him, and 1 
have forgotten his precise business, was Sandy Vowle 
And he was six feet seven, but lean and lathy, and it 





THE LANG MEN O’ LARUT 5 


was more in the elasteecity of his neck that the height 
lay than in any honesty o’ bone and sinew. Five feet 
and a few odd inches may have been his real height. 
The remainder came out when he held up his head, and 
six feet seven he was upon the door-sills. I took his 
measure in chalk standin’ on a chair. And next to him, 
but a proportionately made man, ruddy and of a fair 
countenance, was Jock Coan—that they called the Fir 
Cone. He was but six feet five, and a child beside 
Lammitter and Vowle. When the three walked out 
together, they made a scunner run through the colony o° 
Larut. The Malays ran round them as though they had 
been the giant trees in the Yosemite Valley—these three 
Lang Men o’ Larut. It was perfectly ridiculous—a lusus 
nature—that one little place should have contained 
maybe the three tallest ordinar’ men upon the face o” 
the earth. 

‘Obsairve now the order o’ things. For it led to the 
finest big drink in Larut, and six sore heads the morn 
that endured for a week. I am against immoderate 
liquor, but the event to follow was a justification. You 
must understand that many coasting steamers call at 
Larut wi’ strangers o’ the mercantile profession. In the 
spring time, when the young cocoanuts were ripening, 
and the trees o’ the forests were putting forth their 
leaves, there came an American man to Larut, and he 
was six foot three, or it may have been four, in his 
stockings. He came on business from Sacramento, but 
he stayed for pleasure wi’ the Lang Men o’ Larut. 
Less than a half o’ the population were ordinar’ in their 
girth and stature, ye will understand—Howson and 
Nailor, merchants, five feet nine or thereabouts. He 
had business with those two, and he stood above them 
from the six feet threedom o’ his height till they went 


& LIFE’S HANDICAP 


to drink. In the course o’ conversation he said, as tall 
men will, things about his height, and the trouble of it te 
him. ‘That was his pride o’ the flesh. 

‘As the longest man in the island——” he said, but 
there they took him up and asked if he were sure. 

‘“T say I am the longest man in the island,” he said, 
*“fand on that [ll bet my substance.” 

“They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and 
there, and put it aside while they called Jock Coan from 
his house, near by among the fireflies’ winking. 

*““How’s a’ wi’ you?”’ said Jock, and came in by the 
side o’ the Sacramento profligate, two inches, or it may 
have been one, taller than he. 

—*“Vou’re long,’’ said the man, opening hiseyes. ‘But 
Yam longer.” An’ they sent a whistle through the night 
an’ howkit out Sandy Vowle from his bit bungalow, and 
he came in an’ stood by the side o’ Jock, an’ the pair just 
fillit the room to the ceiling-cloth. 

‘The Sacramento man was a euchre-player and a most 
profane sweerer. ‘“‘You hold both Bowers,” he said, 
“but the Joker is with me.” 

“Fair an’ softly,” says Nailor. ‘‘ Jock, whaur’s Lang 
Lammitter?”’ 

‘Here,’ says that man, putting his leg through the 
window and coming in like an anaconda o’ the desert 
furlong by furlong, one foot in Penang and one in Batavia, 
and a hand in North Borneo it may be. 

‘** Are you suited?” said Nailor, when the hinder end 
o Lang Lammitter was slidden through the sill an’ the 
head of Lammitter was lost in the smoke away above. 

‘The American man took out his card and put it on 
the table. ‘‘Esdras B. Longer is my name, America is 
my nation, ’Frisco is my resting-place, but this here beats 
€reation,” said he. “Boys, giants—side-show giants—I 


THE LANG MEN O’ LARUT 7 


minded to slide out of my bet if I had been overtopped, 
on the strength of the riddle on this paste-board. I 
would have done it if you had topped me even by three 
inches, but when it comes to feet—yards—miles, I am 
not the man to shirk the biggest drink that ever made 
the travellers’-joy palm blush with virginal indignation, 
or the orang-outang and the perambulating dyak howl 
with envy. Set them up and continue till the final con- 
clusion.” 

‘O mon, I tell you ’twas an awful sight to see those 
four giants threshing about the house and the island, and 
tearin’ down the pillars thereof an’ throwing palm-trees 
broadcast, and currling their long legs round the hills o’ 
Larut. An awfw’ sight! I was there. I did not mean 
to tell you, but it’s out now. I was not overcome, for I 
e’en sat me down under the pieces o’ the table at four the 
morn an’ meditated upon the strangeness of things. 

‘Losh, yon’s the breakfast-bell!’ 


REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG? 


Hans BREITMANN paddled across the deck in his pink 
pyjamas, a cup of tea in one hand and a cheroot in the 
other, when the steamer was sweltering down the coast on 
her way to Singapur. He drank beer all day and all 
night, and played a game called ‘Scairt’ with three 
compatriots. 

‘I haf washed,’ said he in a voice of thunder, ‘but 
dere is no use washing on these hell-seas. Look at me—I 
am still all wet and schweatin’. It is der tea dot makes 
meso. Boy, bring me Bilsener on ice.’ 

‘You will die if you drink beer before breakfast,’ 
said one man. ‘Beer is the worst thing in the world 
fOr 

‘Ya, I know—der liver. I haf no liver, und I shall 
not die. Atleast I will not die obon dese benny sdeamers 
dot haf no beer fit to trink. If I should haf died, I will 
haf don so a hoondert dimes before now—in Shermany, 
in New York, in Japon, in Assam, und all over der inside 
barts of South Amerique. Also in Shamaica should I haf 
died or in Siam, but I am here; und der are my orchits 
dot I have drafelled all the vorld round to find.’ 

He pointed towards the wheel, where, in two rough 
wooden boxes, lay a mass of shrivelled vegetation, sup- 
posed by all the ship to represent Assam orchids of fabu- 
lous value. 

Now, orchids do not grow in the main streets of towns, 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcmitLan & Co, 
8 


REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG 9 


and Hans Breitmann had gone far to get his. There 
was nothing that he had not collected that year, from 
king-crabs to white kangaroos. 

‘Lisden now,’ said he, after he had been speaking for 
not much more than ten minutes without a pause; ‘ Lisden 
und I will dell you a sdory to show how bad und worse 
it is to go gollectin’ und belief vot anoder fool haf said. 
Dis was in Uraguay which was in Amerique—North or 
Sout’ you would not know—und I was hoontin’ orchits 
und aferydings else dot I could back in my kanasters— 
dot is drafelling sbecimen-gaces. Dere vas den mit me | 
anoder man—Reingelder, dot vas his name—und he vas 
hoontin’ also but only coral-snakes—joost Uraguay coral- 
snakes—aferykind you could imagine. I dell you a 
coral-snake is a peauty—all red und white like coral dot 
has been gestrung in bands upon der neck of a girl. Dere 
is one snake howefer dot we who gollect know ash der 
Sherman Flag, pecause id is red und plack und white, 
joost like a sausage mit druffles. Reingelder he was 
naturalist—goot man—goot trinker—better as me! ‘‘By 
Gott,” said Reingelder, “I will get a Sherman Flag snake 
or I will die.”’ Und we toorned all Uraguay upside- 
behint all pecause of dot Sherman Flag. 

‘Von day when we was in none knows where— 
shwingin’ in our hummocks among der woods, oop comes 
a natif woman mit a Sherman Flag in a bickle-bottle— 
my bickle-bottle—und we both fell from our hummocks 
flat ubon our pot—what you call stomach—mit shoy at 
dis thing. Now I was gollectin’ orchits also, und I 
knowed dot der idee of life to Reingelder vas dis Sher- 
man Flag. Derefore I bicked myselfs oof und I said, 
“‘Reingelder, dot is your find.’”’—“ Heart’s true friend, dou 
art a goot man,” said Reingelder, und mit dot he obens 
der bickle-bottle, und der natif woman she shqueals: 


ro LIFE’S HANDICAP 


“Herr Gott! It will bite.” Isaid—pecause in Uraguay 
a man must be careful of der insects—‘ Reingelder, 
shpifligate her in der alcohol und den she will be all 
right.”—“‘Nein,” said Reingelder, ‘‘I will der shnake 
alife examine. Dere is no fear. Der coral-shnakes are 
mitout shting-apparatus brofided.” Boot I looked at 
her het, und she vas der het of a boison-shnake—der 
true viper cranium, narrow und contract. “It is not 
goot,”’ said I, “she may bite und den—we are tree 
hoondert mile from aferywheres. Broduce der alcohol 
und bickle him alife.”’ Reingelder he had him in his 
hand—grawlin’ und grawlin’ as slow as a woorm und 
dwice as guiet. ‘‘ Nonsense,” says Reingelder. ‘‘ Yates 
haf said dot not von of der coral-shnakes haf der sack of 
boison.”’ Yates vas der crate authorité ubon der reptilia 
of Sout’ Amerique. He haf written a book. You do 
not know, of course, but he vas a crate authorité. 

‘I gum my eye upon der Sherman Flag, grawlin’ und 
grawlin’ in Reingelder’s fist, und der het vas not der het 
of innocence. ‘‘Mein Gott,’ Isaid. “It is you dot will 
get der sack—der sack from dis life here pelow!”’ 

‘Ten you may haf der shnake,” says Reingelder, pat- 
tin’ it ubon her het. ‘See now, I will show you vat 
Yates haf written!”’ 

‘Und mit dot he went indo his dent, unt brung out 
his big book of Yates; der Sherman Flag grawlin’ in his 
fist. ‘‘ Yates haf said,” said Reingelder, und he throwed. 
oben der book in der fork of his fist und read der passage, 
proofin’ conglusivement dot nefer coral-shnake bite vas 
boison. Den he shut der book mit a bang, und dot 
shqueeze der Sherman Flag, und she nip once und dwice. 

‘““ Ter liddle fool he haf bit me,’’ says Reingelder. 

‘Dese things was before we know apout der perman- 
ganat-potash injection. I was discomfordable. 


REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG TE 


‘“Die oop der arm, Reingelder,” said I, “und trink 
whisky ontil you can no more trink.” 

‘“Trink ten tousand tevils! I will go to dinner,” said 
Reingelder, und he put her afay und it vas very red mit 
emotion. 

‘We lifed upon soup, horse-flesh, und beans for dinner, 
but before we vas eaten der soup, Reingelder he haf hold 
of his arm und cry, “It is genumben to der clavicle. [I 
am a dead man; und Yates he haf lied in brint!”’ 

‘T dell you it vas most sad, for der symbtoms dot 
came vas all dose of strychnine. He vas doubled inte 
big knots, und den undoubled, und den redoubled mooch 
worse dan pefore, und he frothed. I vas mit him, saying, 
““Reingelder, dost dou know me?” but he himself, der 
inward gonsciousness part, was peyond knowledge, und 
so I know he vas not in bain. Den he wrop himself cop 
in von dremendous knot und den he died—all alone mit 
mein Uraguay. I was sorry, for I lofed Reingelder, und 
I puried him, und den I took der coral-shnake—dot Sher- 
man Flag—so bad und dreacherous und I bickled him 
alife. 

‘So I got him: und so I lost Reingelder.’ 


THE WANDERING JEW! 


“IF you go once round the world in an easterly direction, 
you gain one day,’ said the men of science to John 
Hay. In after years John Hay went east, west, north, 
and south, transacted business, made love, and begat a 
family, as have done many men, and the scientific infor- 
mation above recorded lay neglected in the deeps of his 
mind with a thousand other matters of equal importance. 

When a rich relative died, he found himself wealthy 
beyond any reasonable expectation that he had enter- 
tained in his previous career, which had been a chequezed 
and evil one. Indeed, long before the legacy came to 
him, there existed in the brain of John Hay a little cloud 
—a momentary obscuration of thought that came and 
went almost before he could realize that there was any 
solution of continuity. So do the bats flit round the 
eaves of a house to show that the darkness is falling. He 
entered upon great possessions, in money, land, and houses; 
but behind his delight stood a ghost that cried out that 
his enjoyment of these things should not be of long dura- 
tion. It was the ghost of the rich relative, who had been 
permitted to return to earth to torture his nephew into 
the grave. Wherefore, under the spur of this constant 
reminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy 
business-like stolidity that hid the shadow on his mind, 
turned investments, houses, and lands into sovereigns— 
rich, round, red, English sovereigns, each one worth 


ICopyright, 1891, by MacmitLan & Co. 
12 f 


THE WANDERING JEW 13 


twenty shillings. Lands may become valueless, and 
houses fly heavenward on the wings of red flame, but till 
the Day of Judgment a sovereign will always be a sov- 
ereign—that is to say, a king of pleasures. 

Possessed of his sovereigns, John Hay would fain have 
spent them one by one on such coarse amusements as his 
soul loved; but he was haunted by the instant fear of 
Death; for the ghost of his relative stood in the hall of 
his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway 
that life was short, that there was no hope of increase of 
days, and that the undertakers were already roughing 
out his nephew’s coffin. John Hay was generally alone 
in the house, and even when he had company, his friends 
could not hear the clamorous uncle. The shadow inside 
his brain grew larger and blacker. His fear of death was 
driving John Hay mad. 

Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed 
away all his discarded information, rose to light the 
scientific fact of the Easterly journey. On the next 
occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairway urging 
him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, ‘Who 
goes round the world once easterly, gains one day.’ 

His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made 
John Hay unwilling to give this precious message of hope 
to his friends. They might take it up and analyse it. 
He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely 
were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him 
alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the 
secret of immortality been vouchsafed. It would be 
impious—against all the designs of the Creator—to set 
mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this would crowd 
the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all 
things to be alone. If he could get round the world in 
two months—some one of whom he had read, he could 


14 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


not remember the name, had covered the passage in 
eighty days—he would gain a clear day; and by steadily 
continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one 
hundred and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year. 
It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisa- 
tion advanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was 
opened, he could improve the pace. 

Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the 
thirty-fifth year of his age, set forth on his travels, 
two voices bearing him company from Dover as he 
sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates 
Valley Railway was newly opened, and he was the 
first man who took ticket direct from Calais to Calcutta 
—thirteen days in the train. Thirteen days in the train 
are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world 
and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over 
the two months, and started afresh with four and twenty 
hours of precious time to his credit. Three years passed, 
and John Hay religiously went round this earth seeking 
for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his 
sovereigns. He became known on many lines as the 
man who wanted to go on; when people asked him what 
he was and what he did, he answered— 

‘I’m the person who intends to live, and I am trying 
to do it now.’ 

His days were divided between watching the white 
wake spinning behind the stern of the swiftest steamers, 
or the brown earth flashing past the windows of the 
fastest trains; and he noted in a pocket-book every 
minute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless 
eternity. 

‘This is better than praying for long life,’ quoth John 
Hay as he turned his face eastward for his twentieth trip. 
The years had done more for him than he dared to hope. 


THE WANDERING JEW rs 


By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet 
the newly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway 
ticket held good via Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. 
The round trip could be managed in a fraction over forty- 
seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John Hay 
told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the 
house-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and 
passed; but the woman was one of resource, and im- 
mediately took counsel with the lawyers who had first 
informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many 
sovereigns still remained, and another Hay longed to 
spend them on things more sensible than railway tickets 
and steamer accommodation. 

The chase was long, for when a man is journeying 
literally for the dear life, he does not tarry upon the 
road. Round the world Hay swept anew, and overtook 
the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look 
for him, in Madras. It was there that he found the 
reward of his toil and the assurance of a blessed im- 
mortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watching always 
the parched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that 
turned eternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in 
a little house close to the Madras surf. All that Hay 
need do was to hang by ropes from the roof of the room 
and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This 
was better than steamer or train, for he gained a day in 
a day, and was thus the equal of the undying sun. The 
other Hay would pay his expenses throughout eternity. 


It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais 
to Hongkong, though that will come about in fifteen 
years; but men say that if you wander along the southern 
coast of India you shall find in a neatly whitewashed 


16 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from the roof, 
over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys 
the attraction of the earth, an old and worn man who 
for ever faces the rising sun, a stop-watch in his hand, 
racing against eternity. He cannot drink, he does not 
smoke, and his living expenses amount to perhaps 
twenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the 
Immortal. Without, he hears the thunder of the wheel- 
ing world with which he is careful to explain he has no 
connection whatever; but if you say that it is only the 
noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on 
his brain is passing away as the brain ceases to work, and 
he doubts sometimes whether the doctor spoke the truth. 

“Why does not the sun always remain over my head?’ 
asks John Hay. 


THROUGH THE FIRE! 


THE Policeman rode through the Himalayan forest, under 
the moss-draped oaks, and his orderly trotted after him. 

‘It’s an ugly business, Bhere Singh,’ said the Police- 
man. ‘Where are they?’ 

‘It is a very ugly business,’ said Bhere Singh; ‘and as 
for them, they are, doubtless, now frying in a hotter fire 
than was ever made of spruce-branches.’ 

‘Let us hope not,’ said the Policeman, ‘for, allowing for 
the difference between race and race, it’s the story of 
Francesca da Rimini, Bhere Singh.’ 

Bhere Singh knew nothing about Francesca da Rimini, 
so he held his peace until they came to the charcoal- 
burners’ clearing where the dying flames said ‘whit, whit, 
whit’ as they fluttered and whispered over the white 
ashes. It must have been a great fire when at full 
height. Men had seen it at Donga Pa across the valley 
winking and blazing through the night, and said that the 
charcoal-burners of Kodru were getting drunk. But it 
was only Suket Singh, Sepoy of the 102d Punjab Native 
Infantry, and Athira, a woman, burning—burning— 
burning. 

This was how things befell; and the Policeman’s Diary 
will bear me out. 

Athira was the wife of Madu, who was a charcoal- 
burner, one-eyed and of a malignant disposition. A 
week after their marriage, he beat Athira with a heavy 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcmILLAN & Co. 
17 


18 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


stick. A month later, Suket Singh, Sepoy, came that 
way to the cool hills on leave from his regiment, and 
electrified the villagers of Kodru with tales of service 
and glory under the Government, and the honour in 
which he, Suket Singh, was held by the Colonel Sahib 
Bahadur. And Desdemona listened to Othello as Des 
demonas have done all the world over, and, as she lis» 
tened, she loved. 

‘I’ve a wife of my own,’ said Suket Singh, ‘though 
that is no matter when you come to think of it. I am 
also due to return to my regiment after a time, and I 
cannot be a deserter—I who intend to be Havildar.’ 
There is no Himalayan version of ‘I could not love thee, 
dear, as much, Loved I not Honour more;’ but Suket 
Singh came near to making one. 

‘Never mind,’ said Athira, ‘stay with me, and, if 
Madu tries to beat me, you beat him.’ 

‘Very good,’ said Suket Singh; and he beat Madu 
severely, to the delight of all the charcoal-burners of 
Kodru. 

‘That is enough,’ said Suket Singh, as he rolled Madu 
down the hillside. ‘Now we shall have peace.’ But 
Madu crawled up the grass slope again, and hevered 
round his hut with angry eyes. 

‘He'll kill me dead,’ said Athira to Suket Singh. 
‘You must take me away.’ 

‘There’ll be a trouble in the Lines. My wife will pull 
out my beard; but never mind,’ said Suket Singh, ‘T will 
take you.’ 

There was loud trouble in the Lines, and Suket 
Singh’s beard was pulled, and Suket Singh’s wife went ta 
live with her mother and took away the children. ‘That’s 
all right,’ said Athira; and Suket Singh said, ‘Yes, that’s 
all right.’ 


THROUGH THE FIRE 1g 


So there was only Madu left in the hut that looks 
across the valley to Donga Pa; and, since the beginning 
of time, no one has had any sympathy for husbands so 
unfortunate as Madu. 

He went to Juseen Dazé, the wizard-man who keeps 
the Talking Monkey’s Head. 

‘Get me back my wife,’ said Madu. 

‘TI can’t,’ said Juseen Dazé, ‘until you have made the 
Sutlej in the valley run up the Donga Pa.’ 

‘No riddles,’ said Madu, and he shook his hatchet 
above Juseen Dazé’s white head. 

‘Give all your money to the headmen of the village,’ 
said Juseen Dazé; ‘and they will hold a communal 
Council, and the Council will send a message that your 
wife must come back.’ 

So Madu gave up all his worldly wealth, amounting 
to twenty-seven rupees, eight annas, three pice, and a 
silver chain, to the Council of Kodru. And it fell as 
Juseen Dazé foretold. 

They sent Athira’s brother down into Suket Singh’s 
regiment to call Athira home. Suket Singh kicked 
him once round the Lines, and then handed him over to 
the Havildar, who beat him with a belt. 

‘Come back,’ yelled Athira’s brother. 

“Where to?’ said Athira. 

“To Madu,’ said he. 

‘Never,’ said she. 

‘Then Juseen Dazé will send a curse, and you will 
wither away like a barked tree in the springtime,’ said 
Athira’s brother. Athira slept over these things. 

Next morning she had rheumatism. ‘I am beginning 
to wither away like a barked tree in the springtime,’ she 
said. ‘That is the curse of Juseen Dazé.’ 

And she really began to wither away because her 


20 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


heart was dried up with fear, and those who believe in 
curses die from curses. Suket Singh, too, was afraid 
because he loved Athira better than his very life. Two 
months passed, and Athira’s brother stood outside the 
regimental Lines again and yelped, ‘Aha! You are 
withering away. Come back.’ 

‘T will come back,’ said Athira. 

‘Say rather that we will come back,’ said Suket Singh. 

‘Ai; but when?’ said Athira’s brother. 

‘Upon a day very early in the morning,’ said Suket 
Singh; and he tramped off to apply to the Colonel Sahib 
Bahadur for one week’s leave. 

‘T am withering away like a barked tree in the spring,’ 
moaned Athira. 

‘You will be better soon,’ said Suket Singh; and he 
told her what was in his heart, and the two laughed 
together softly, for they loved each other. But Athira 
grew better from that hour. 

They went away together, travelling third-class by 
train as the regulations provided, and then in a cart to 
the low hills, and on foot to the high ones. Athira 
sniffed the scent of the pines of her own hills, the wet 

limalayan hills. ‘It is good to be alive,’ said Athira. 

‘Hah!’ said Suket Singh. ‘Where is the Kodru road 
and where is the Forest Ranger’s house?’ ; 

‘It cost forty rupees twelve years ago,’ said the Forest 
Ranger, handing the gun. 

‘Here are twenty,’ said Suket Singh, ‘and you must 
give me the best bullets.’ 

‘It is very good to be alive,’ said Athira wistfully, 
sniffing the scent of the pine-mould; and they waited 
till the night had fallen upon Kodru and the Donga Pa. 
Madu had stacked the dry wood for the next day’s 
charcoal-burning on the spur above his house. ‘It is 


THROUGH THE FIRE 21 


courteous in Madu to save us this trouble,’ said Suket 
Singh as he stumbled on the pile, which was twelve foot 
square and four high. ‘We must wait till the moon 
rises.’ 

When the moon rose, Athira knelt upon the pile. ‘If 
it were only a Government Snider,’ said Suket Singh 
ruefully, squinting down the wire-bound barrel of the 
Forest Ranger’s gun. 

‘Be quick,’ said Athira; and Suket Singh was quick; 
but Athira was quick no longer. Then he lit the pile 
at the four corners and climbed on to it, re-loading the 
gun. 
The little flames began to peer up between the big 
logs atop of the brushwood. ‘The Government should 
teach us to pull the triggers with our toes,’ said Suket 
Singh grimly to the moon. That was the last public 
observation of Sepoy Suket Singh. 


Upon a day, early in the morning, Madu came to the 
pyre and shrieked very grievously, and ran away to catch - 
the Policeman who was on tour in the district. ; 

‘The base-born has ruined four rupees’ worth of 
charcoal wood,’ Madu gasped. ‘He has also killed my 
wife, and he has left a letter which I cannot read, tied to 
a pine bough.’ 

In the stiff, formal hand taught in the regimental 
school, Sepoy Suket Singh had written— 

‘Let us be burned together, if anything remain over, 
for we have made the necessary prayers. We have also 
cursed Madu, and Malak the brother of Athira—both 
evil men. Send my service to the Colonel Sahib Baha- 
dur.’ 

The Policeman looked long and curiously at the 


22 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


marriage bed of red and white ashes on which lay, dull 
black, the barrel of the Ranger’s gun. He drove his 
spurred heel absently into a half-charred log, and the 
chattering sparks flew upwards. ‘Most extraordinary 
people,’ said the Policeman. 

‘Whe-w, whew, ouiou,’ said the little flames. 

The Policeman entered the dry bones of the case, for 
the Punjab Government does not approve of romancing, 
in his Diary. 

‘But who will pay me those four rupees?’ said Madu. 


THE FINANCES OF THE GODS! 


THE evening meal was ended in Dhunni Bhagat’s Chu- 
bara and the old priests were smoking or counting their 
beads. A little naked child pattered in, with its mouth 
wide open, a handful of marigold flowers in one hand, and 
a lump of conserved tobacco in the other. It tried to 
kneel and make obeisance to Gobind, but it was so fat 
that it fell forward on its shaven head, and rolled on its 
side, kicking and gasping, while the marigolds tumbled 
one way and the tobacco the other. Gobind laughed, 
set it up again, and blessed the marigold flowers as he 
received the tobacco. 

‘From my father,’ said the child. ‘He has the fever, 
and cannot come. Wilt thou pray for him, father?’ 

‘Surely, littlest; but the smoke is on the ground, and 
the night-chill is in the air, and it is not good to go 
abroad naked in the autumn.’ 

‘I have no clothes,’ said the child, ‘and all to-day I 
have been carrying cow-dung cakes to the bazar. It was 
very hot, and I am very tired.’ It shivered a little, for 
the twilight was cool. 

Gobind lifted an arm under his vast tattered quilt of 
many colours, and made an inviting little nest by his 
side. The child crept in, and Gobind filled his brass- 
studded leather waterpipe with the new tobacco. When 
I came to the Chubara the shaven head with the tuft 
atop, and the beady black eyes looked out of the folds 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcMILLAN & Co. 
23 


24 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


of the quilt as a squirrel looks out from his nest, and 
Gobind was smiling while the child played with his 
beard. 

I would have said something friendly, but remembered 
in time that if the child fell ill afterwards I should be 
credited with the Evil Eye, and that is a horrible pos- 
session. 

‘Sit thou still, Thumbling,’ I said as it made to get up 
and run away. ‘Where is thy slate, and why has the 
teacher let such an evil character loose on the streets 
when there are no police to protect us weaklings? In 
which ward dost thou try to break thy neck with flying 
kites from the house-tops?’ 

‘Nay, Sahib, nay,’ said the child, burrowing its face 
into Gobind’s beard, and twisting uneasily. ‘There was 
a holiday to-day among the schools, and I do not always 
fly kites. I play ker-h-kit like the rest.’ 

Cricket is the national game among the schoolboys of 
the Punjab, from the naked hedge-school children, who 
use an old kerosene-tin for wicket, to the B.A.’s of the 
University, who compete for the Championship belt. 

‘Thou play kerlikit!' Thou art half the height of the 
bat!’ I said. 

The child nodded resolutely. ‘Yea,I doplay. Perlay- 
ball. Ow-at! Ran,ran,ran! Tknowitall.’ 

‘But thou must not forget with all this to pray to the 
Gods according to custom,’ said Gobind, who did not 
altogether approve of cricket and western innovations. 

‘I do not forget,’ said the child in a hushed voice. 

‘Also to give reverence to thy teacher, and’—Gobind’s 
voice softened—‘ to abstain from pulling holy men by the 
beard, little badling. Eh, eh, eh?’ 

The child’s face was altogether hidden in the. great 
white beard, and it began to whimper till Gobind soothed 


THE FINANCES OF THE GODS 28 


it as children are soothed all the world over, with the 
promise of a story. 

‘IT did not think to frighten thee, senseless little one. 
Look up! Am I angry? Aré, aré, aré! Shall I weep 
too, and of our tears make a great pond and drown us 
both, and then thy father will never get well, lacking thee 
to pull his beard? Peace, peace, and I will tell thee of 
the Gods. Thou hast heard many tales?’ 

‘Very many, father.’ 

‘Now, this is a new one which thou hast not heard. 
Long and long ago when the Gods walked with men as 
they do to-day, but that we have not faith to see, Shiv, 
the greatest of Gods, and Parbati his wife, were walking 
in the garden of a temple.’ 

‘Which temple? That in the Nandgaon ward?’ said 
the child. 

‘Nay, very faraway. Maybe at Trimbak or Hurdwar, 
whither thou must make pilgrimage when thou art a 
man. Now, there was sitting in the garden under the 
jujube trees, a mendicant that had worshipped Shiv for 
forty years, and he lived on the offerings of the pious, and 
meditated holiness night and day.’ 

‘Oh father, was it thou?’ said the child, looking up 
with large eyes. 

‘Nay, I have said it was long ago, and, moreover, this 
mendicant was married.’ 

‘Did they put him on a horse with flowers on his head, 
and forbid him to go to sleep all night long? Thus they 
did to me when they made my wedding,’ said the child, 
who had been married a few months before. 

‘And what didst thou do?’ said I. 

‘I wept, and they called me evil names, and then I 
smote her, and we wept together.’ 

‘Thus did not the mendicant,’ said Gobind; ‘for he 


26 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


was a holy man, and very poor. Parbati perceived him 
sitting naked by the temple steps where all went up and 
down, and she said to Shiv, ‘‘ What shall men think of the 
Gods when the Gods thus scorn their worshippers? For 
forty years yonder manihas prayed to us, and yet there 
be only a few grains of rice and some broken cowries 
before him after all. Men’s hearts will be hardened by 
this thing.”” And Shiv said, ‘‘It shall be looked to,” and 
so he called to the temple which was the temple of his 
son, Ganesh of the elephant head, saying, ‘‘Son, there is 
a mendicant without who is very poor. What wilt thou 
do for him?” ‘Then that great elephant-headed One 
awoke in the dark and answered, “In three days, if it be 
thy will, he shall have one lakh of rupees.”’ Then Shiv 
and Parbati went away. 

‘But there was a money-lender in the garden hidden 
among the marigolds’—the child looked at the ball of 
crumpled blossoms in its hands—‘ay, among the yellow 
marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking. He was a 
covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that 
lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant 
and said, “‘O brother, how much do the pious give thee 
daily?”’ The mendicant said, “I cannot tell. Some- 
times a little rice, sometimes a little pulse, and a few 
cowries and, it has been, pickled mangoes, and dried fish.” ’ 

‘That is good,’ said the child, smacking its lips. 

‘Then said the money-lender, “Because I have long 
watched thee, and learned to love thee and thy patience, 
I will give thee now five rupees for all thy earnings of 
the three days tocome. ‘There is only a bond to sign on 
the matter.’”’ But the mendicant said, ‘‘Thou art mad. 
In two months I do not receive the worth of five rupees,” 
and he told the thing to his wife that evening. She, being 
a woman, said, ‘‘ When did money-lender ever make a bad 


THE FINANCES OF THE GODS 27 


bargain? The wolf runs through the corn for the sake of 
the fat deer. Our fate is in the hands of the Gods. 
Pledge it not even for three days.” 

‘So the mendicant returned to the money-lender, and 
would not sell. Then that wicked man sat all day before 
him offering more and more for those three days’ earnings. 
First, ten, fifty, and a hundred rupees; and then, for he 
did not know when the Gods would pour down their 
gifts, rupees by the thousand, till he had offered half a 
lakh of rupees. Upon this sum the mendicant’s wife 
shifted her counsel, and the mendicant signed the bond, 
and the money was paid in silver; great white bullocks 
bringing it by the cartload. But saving only all that 
money, the mendicant received nothing from the Gods at 
all, and the heart of the money-lender was uneasy on 
account of expectation. Therefore at noon of the third 
day the money-lender went into the temple to spy upon 
the councils of the Gods, and to learn in what manner 
that gift might arrive. Even as he was making his 
prayers, a crack between the stones of the floor gaped, 
and, closing, caught him by the heel. Then he heard the 
Gods walking in the temple in the darkness of the columns, 
and Shiv called to his son Ganesh, saying, ‘‘Son, what 
hast thou done in regard to the lakh of rupees for the 
mendicant?’’? And Ganesh woke, for the money-lender 
heard the dry rustle of his trunk uncoiling, and he 
answered, ‘‘ Father, one half of the money has been paid, 
and the debtor for the other half I hold here fast by the 
heel,’’’ 

The child bubbled with laughter. ‘And the money- 
lender paid the mendicant?’ it said. 

‘Surely, fer he whom the Gods hold by the heel must 
pay to the uttermost. The money was paid at evening, 
all silver, in great carts, and thus Ganesh did his work.’ 


28 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Nathu! Ohé Nathu!’ 

A woman was calling in the dusk by the door of the 
courtyard. 

The child began to wriggle. ‘That is my mother,’ 
it said. 

‘Go then, littlest,’ answered Gobind; ‘but stay a 
moment.’ 

He ripped a generous yard from his patchwork-quilt, 
put it over the child’s shoulders, and the child ran 
away. 


THE AMIR’S HOMILY! 


His Royal Highness Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanis- 
tan, G.C.S.I., and trusted ally of Her Imperial Majesty 
the Queen of England and Empress of India, is a gentle- 
man for whom all right-thinking people should have a 
profound regard. Like most other rulers, he governs not 
as he would but as he can, and the mantle of his author- 
ity covers the most turbulent race under the stars. To 
the Afghan neither life, property, law, nor kingship are 
sacred when his own lusts prompt him to rebel. He is 
a thief by instinct, a murderer by heredity and training, 
and frankly and bestially immoral by all three. None 
the less he has his own crooked notions of honour, and 
his character is fascinating to study. On occasion he 
will fight without reason given till he is hacked in pieces; 
on other occasions he will refuse to show fight till he is 
driven into a corner. Herein he is as unaccountable as 
the gray wolf, who is his blood-brother. 

And these men His Highness rules by the only weapon 
that they understand—the fear of death, which among 
some Orientals is the beginning of wisdom. Some say 
that the Amir’s authority reaches no farther than a rifle 
bullet can range; but as none are quite certain when 
their king may be in their midst, and as he alone holds 
every one of the threads of Government, his respect is 
increased among men. Gholam Hyder, the Commander- 
in-chief of the Afghan army, is feared reasonably, for he 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcMiLLAN & Co. 


20 


30 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


can impale; all Kabul city fears the Governor of Kabul, 
who has power of life and death through all the wards; 
but the Amir of Afghanistan, though outlying tribes pre- 
tend otherwise when his back is turned, is dreaded beyond 
chief and governor together. His word is red law; by 
the gust of his passion falls the leaf of man’s life, and his 
favour is terrible. He has suffered many things, and 
been a hunted fugitive before he came to the throne, and 
he understands all the classes of his people. By the 
custom of the East any man or woman having a com- 
plaint to make, or an enemy against whom to be avenged, 
has the right of speaking face to face with the king at 
the daily public audience. ‘This is personal government, 
as it was in the days of Harun al Raschid of blessed 
memory, whose times exist still and will exist long after 
the English have passed away. 

The privilege of open speech is of course exercised at 
certain personal risk. The king may be pleased, and 
raise the speaker to honour for that very bluntness of 
speech which three minutes later brings a too imitative 
petitioner to the edge of the ever ready blade. And the 
people love to have it so, for it is their right. 

It happened upon a day in Kabul that the Amir 
chose to do his day’s work in the Baber Gardens, which 
lie a short distance from the city of Kabul. A light 
table stood before him, and round the table in the open 
air were grouped generals and finance ministers accord- 
ing to their degree. The Court and the long tail of feudal 
chiefs—men of blood, fed and cowed by blood—stood in 
an irregular semicircle round the table, and the wind 
from the Kabul orchards blew among them. All day 
long sweating couriers dashed in with letters from the 
outlying districts with rumours of rebellion, intrigue, 
famine, failure of payments, or announcements of treas- 


THE AMIR’S HOMILY 31 


ure on the road; and all day long the Amir would read 
the dockets, and pass such of these as were less private 
to the officials whom they directly concerned, or call up a 
waiting chief for a word of explanation. It is well to 
speak clearly to the ruler of Afghanistan. Then the grim 
head, under the black astrachan cap with the diamond 
star in front, would nod gravely, and that chief would 
return to his fellows. Once that afternoon a woman 
clamoured for divorce against her husband, who was 
bald, and the Amir, hearing both sides of the case, bade 
her pour curds over the bare scalp, and lick them off, that 
the hair might grown again, and she be contented. Here 
the Court laughed, and the woman withdrew, cursing her 
king under her breath. 

But when twilight was falling, and the order of the 
Court was a little relaxed, there came before the king, in 
custody, a trembling haggard wretch, sore with much 
buffeting, but of stout enough build, who had stolen 
three rupees—of such small matters does His Highness 
take cognisance. 

‘Why did you steal?’ said he; and when the king 
asks questions they do themselves service who answer 
directly. 

‘I was poor, and no one gave. Hungry, and there 
was no food.’ 

‘Why did you not work?’ 

‘I could find no work, Protector of the Poor, and I 
was starving.’ 

‘You lie. You stole for drink, for lust, for idleness, 
for anything but hunger, since any man who will may 
find work and daily bread.’ 

The prisoner dropped his eyes. He had attended the 
Court before, and he knew the ring of the death-tone. 

‘Any man may get work. Who knows this so well 


32 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


as I do? for I too have been hungered—not like you, 
bastard scum, but as any honest man may be, by the 
turn of Fate and the will of God.’ 

Growing warm, the Amir turned to his nobles all arow 
and thrust the hilt of his sabre aside with his elbow. 

‘You have heard this Son of Lies? Hear me tell a 
true tale. I also was once starved, and tightened my 
belt on the sharp belly-pinch. Nor was I alone, for 
with me was another, who did not fail me in my evil 
days, when I was hunted, before ever I came to this 
throne. And wandering like a houseless dog by Kanda- 
har, my money melted, melted, melted till——’ He 
flung out a bare palm before the audience. ‘And day 
upon day, faint and sick, I went back to that one who 
waited, and God knows how we lived, till on a day I took 
our best lihaf—silk it was, fine work of Iran, such as no 
needle now works, warm, and a coverlet for two, and all 
that we had. I brought it to a money-lender in a by- 
lane, and I asked for three rupees upon it. He said to 
me, who am now the King, ‘‘You are a thief. This is 
worth three hundred.” ‘‘I am no thief,’ I answered, 
“but a prince of good blood, and I am hungry.’’—“‘ Prince 
of wandering beggars,’ said that money-lender, ‘‘I have 
no money with me, but go to my house with my clerk 
and he will give you two rupees eight annas, for that is 
all I will lend.’”? So I went with the clerk to the house, 
and we talked on the way, and he gave me the money. 
We lived on it till it was spent, and we fared hard. And 
then that clerk said, being a young man of a good heart, 
“Surely the money-lender will lend yet more on that 
dihaf,’’ and he offered me two rupees. ‘These I refused, 
saying, ‘‘Nay; but get me some work.” And he got 
me work, and I, even I, Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanis- 
tan, wrought day by day as a coolie, bearing burdens, 


THE AMIR’S HOMILY 33 


and labouring of my hands, receiving four annas wage 
a day for my sweat and backache. But he, this bastard 
son of naught, must steal! For a year and four months I 
worked, and none dare say that I lie, for I have a wit- 
ness, even that clerk who is now my friend.’ 

Then there rose in his place among the Sirdars and 
the nobles one clad in silk, who folded his hands and 
said, ‘This is the truth of God, for I, who, by the favour 
df God and the Amir, am such as you know, was once 
clerk to that money-lender.’ 

There was a pause, and the Amir cried hoarsely to 
the prisoner, throwing scorn upon him, till he ended with 
the dread ‘ Dar arid,’ which clinches justice. 

So they led the thief away, and the whole of him was 
seen no more together; and the Court rustled out of 
its silence, whispering, ‘Before God and the Prophet, but 
this is a man!’ 


JEWS IN SHUSHAN! 


My newly purchased house furniture was, at the least, 
insecure; the legs parted from the chairs, and the tops 
from the tables, on the slightest provocation. But such 
as it was, it was to be paid for, and Ephraim, agent and 
collector for the local auctioneer, waited in the verandah 
with the receipt. He was announced by the Mahomedan 
servant as ‘Ephraim, Yahudi’—Ephraim the Jew. He 
who believes in the Brotherhood of Man should hear my 
Elahi Bukhsh grinding the second word through his 
white teeth with all the scorn he dare show before his 
master. Ephraim was, personally, meek in manner—so 
meek indeed that one could not understand how he had 
fallen into the profession of bill-collecting. He resembled 
an over-fed sheep, and his voice suited his figure There 
was a fixed, unvarying mask of childish wonder upon his 
face. If you paid him, he was as one marvelling at your 
wealth; if you sent him away, he seemed puzzled at youz 
hard-heartedness. Never was Jew more unlike his dreac 
breed. 

Ephraim wore list slippers and coats of duster-cloth, 
so preposterously patterned that the most brazen of 
British subalterns would have shied from them in fear, 
Very slow and deliberate was his speech, and carefully 
guarded to give offence to no one. After many weeks, 
Ephraim was induced to speak to me of his friends. 

‘There be eight of us in Shushan, and we are waiting 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcmILLAN & Co. 
a4 


JEWS IN SHUSHAN 35 


till there are ten. Then we shall apply for a synagogue, 
and get leave from Calcutta. To-day we have no syna- 
gogue; and I, only I, am Priest and Butcher to our people. 
I am of the tribe of Judah—I think, but I am not sure. 
My father was of the tribe of Judah, and we wish much 
to get our synagogue. I shall be a priest of that syna- 
gogue.’ 

Shushan is a big city in the North of India, counting 
its dwellers by the ten thousand; and these eight of 
the Chosen People were shut up in its midst, waiting till 
time or chance sent them their full congregation. 

Miriam the wife of Ephraim, two little children, an 
orphan boy of their people, Epraim’s uncle Jackrael 
Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew 
from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest 
ind Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. 
They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great 
city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine, 
and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing 
of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the 
children of the City came to the waste place to fly their 
kites, and Ephraim’s sons held aloof, watching the sport 
from the roof, but never descending to take part in them, 
At the back of the house stood a small brick enclosure, 
in which Ephraim prepared the daily meat for his people 
after the custom of the Jews. Once the rude door of the 
square was suddenly smashed open by a struggle from 
inside, and showed the meek bill-collector at his work, 
nostrils dilated, lips drawn back over his teeth, and his 
hands upon a half-maddened sheep. He was attired in 
strange raiment, having no relation whatever to duster 
coats or list slippers, and a knife was in his mouth. 
As he struggled with the animal between the walls, the 
breath came from him in thick sobs, and the nature of 


36 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the man seemed changed. When the ordained slaughter 
was ended, he saw that the door was open and shut it 
hastily, his hand leaving a red mark on the timber, whi! 
his children from the neighbouring house-top looked down 
awe-stricken and open-eyed. A glimpse of Ephraim 
busied in one of his religious capacities was no thing 
to be desired twice. 

Summer came upon Shushan, turning the trodden 
waste-ground to iron, and bringing sickness to the city. 

‘It will not touch us,’ said Ephraim confidently. 
‘Before the winter we shall have our synagogue. My 
brother and his wife and children are coming up from 
Calcutta, and then I shall be the priest of the synagogue.’ 

Jackrael Israel, the old man, would crawl out in the 
stifling evenings to sit on the rubbish-heap and watch the 
corpses being borne down to the river. 

‘It will not come near us,’ said Jackrael Israel feebly, 
‘for we are the People of God, and my nephew will be 
priest of our synagogue. Let them die.’ He crept 
back to his house again and barred the door to shut him- 
self off from the world of the Gentile. 

But Miriam, the wife of Ephraim, looked out of the 
window at the dead as the biers passed and said that she 
was afraid. Ephraim comforted her with hopes of the 
synagogue to be, and collected bills as was his custom. 

In one night, the two children died and were buried 
early in the morning by Ephraim. The deaths never 
appeared in the City returns. ‘The sorrow is my sor- 
row,’ said Ephraim; and this to him seemed a sufficient 
reason for setting at naught the sanitary regulations of a 
farge, flourishing, and remarkably well-governed Empire. 

The orphan boy, dependent on the charity of Ephraim 
and his wife, could have felt no gratitude, and must have 
been a ruffian. He begged for whatever money his pro- 


JEWS IN SHUSHAN EY 


tectors would give him, and with that fled down-country 
for his life. A week after the death of her children 
Miriam left her bed at night and wandered over the 
country to find them. She heard them crying behind 
every bush, or drowning in every pool of water in the 
fields, and she begged the cartmen on the Grand Trunk 
Road not to steal her little ones from her. In the morn- 
ing the sun rose and beat upon her bare head, and she 
turned into the cool wet crops to lie down and never 
same back; though Hyem Benjamin and Ephraim sought 
her for two nights. 

The look of patient wonder on Ephraim’ s face deep- 
ened, but he presently found an explanation. ‘There 
are so few of us here, and these people are so many,’ said 
he, ‘that, it may be, our God has forgotten us.’ 

In the house on the outskirts of the city old Jackrael 
Israel and Hester grumbled that there was no one to 
wait on them, and that Miriam had been untrue to her 
race. Ephraim went out and collected bills, and in the 
evenings smoked with Hyem Benjamin till, one dawning, 
Hyem Benjamin died, having first paid all his debts to 
Ephraim. Jackrael Israel and Hester sat alone in the 
empty house all day, and, when Ephraim returned, 
wept the easy tears of age till they cried themselves 
asleep. 

A week later Ephraim, staggering under a huge 
bundle of clothes and cooking-pots, led the old man anc 
woman to the railway station, where the bustle and con- 
fusion made them whimper. 

‘We are going back to Calcutta,’ said Ephraim, to 
whose sleeve Hester was clinging. ‘There are more of 
us there, and here my house is empty.’ 

He helped Hester into the carriage and, turning back, 
said to me, ‘I should have been priest of the synagogué¢ 


38 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


if there had been ten of us. Surely we must have been 
forgotten by our God.’ 

The remnant of the broken colony passed out of the 
station on their journey south; while a subaltern, turning 
over the books on the bookstall, was whistling to himself 
‘The Ten Little Nigger Boys.’ 

But the tune sound ed as solemn as the Dead March. 

It was the dirge of the Jews in Shushan. 


THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG!? 


IF you consider the circumstances of the case, it was the 
only thing that he could do. But Pambé Serang has 
been hanged by the neck till he is dead, and Nurkeed 
is dead also. 

Three years ago, when the Elsass-Lothringen steamer 
Saarbruck was coaling at Aden and the weather was very 
hot indeed, Nurkeed, the big fat Zanzibar stoker who fed 
the second right furnace thirty feet down in the hold, got 
leave to go ashore. He departed a ‘Seedee boy,’ as they 
call the stokers; he returned the full-blooded Sultan of 
Zanzibar—His Highness Sayyid Burgash, with a bottle 
in each hand. Then he sat on the fore-hatch grating, 
eating salt fish and onions, and singing the songs of a far 
country. The food belonged to Pambé, the Serang or head 
man of the lascar sailors. He had just cooked it for him- 
self, turned to borrow some salt, and when he came back 
Nurkeed’s dirty black fingers were spading into the rice. 

A serang is a person of importance, far above a stoker, 
though the stoker draws better pay. He sets the chorus 
of ‘Hya! MHulla! Hee-ah! Heh!’ when the captain’s 
gig is pulled up to the davits; he heaves the lead too; and 
sometimes, when all the ship is lazy, he puts on his 
whitest muslin and a big red sash, and plays with the 
passengers’ children on the quarter-deck, Then the 
passengers give him money, and he saves it all up for 
an orgie at Bombay or Calcutta, or Pulu Penang. 


ICopyright, 1891, by MacmiLtan & Co, 
39 


4o LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Ho! you fat black barrel, you’re eating my food!’ 
said Pambé, in the Other Lingua Franca that begins 
where the Levant tongue stops, and runs from Port Said 
eastward till east is west, and the sealing-brigs of the 
Kurile Islands gossip with the strayed Hakodate junks. 

‘Son of Eblis, monkey-face, dried shark’s liver, pig- 
man, I am the Sultan Sayyid Burgash, and the com- 
mander of all this ship. Take away your garbage;’ 
and Nurkeed thrust the empty pewter rice-plate into 
Pambé’s hand. 

Pambé beat it into a basin over Nurkeed’s woolly 
head. Nurkeed drew his sheath-knife and stabbed 
Pambé in the leg. Pambé drew Jus sheath-knife; but 
Nurkeed dropped down into the darkness of the hold 
and spat through the grating at Pambé, who was staining 
the clean fore-deck with his blood. 

Only the white moon saw these things; for the officers 
were looking after the coaling, and the passengers were 
tossing in their close cabins. ‘AIl right,’ said Pambé 
—and went forward to tie up his leg—‘we will settle 
the account later on.’ 

He was a Malay born in India: married once in Burma, 
where his wife had a cigar-shop on the Shwe Dagon 
road; once in Singapore, to a Chinese girl; and once in 
Madras, to a Mahomedan woman who sold fowls. The 
English sailor cannot, owing to postal and telegraph 
facilities, marry as profusely as he used to do; but native 
sailors can, being uninfluenced by the barbarous inven- 
tions of the Western savage. Pambé was a good hus- 
band when he happened to remember the existence of a 
wife; but he was also a very good Malay; and it is not 
wise to offend a Malay, because he does not forget any- 
thing. Moreover, in Pambé’s case blood had been drawn 
and food spoiled. 


THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG 42 


Next morning Nurkeed rose with a blank mind. He 
was no longer Sultan of Zanzibar, but a very hot stoker. 
So he went on deck and opened his jacket to the morning 
breeze, till a sheath-knife came like a flying-fish and 
stuck into the woodwork of the cook’s galley half an 
inch from his right armpit. He ran down below before 
his time, trying to remember what he could have said to 
the owner of the weapon. At noon, when all the ship’s 
lascars were feeding, Nurkeed advanced into their midst, 
and, being a placid man with a large regard for his own 
skin, he opened negotiations, saying, ‘Men of the ship, 
last night I was drunk, and this morning I know that I 
behaved unseemly to some one or another of you. Who 
was that man, that I may meet him face to face and say 
that I was drunk?’ 

Pambé measured the distance to Nurkeed’s naked 
breast. If he sprang at him he might be tripped up, 
and a blind blow at the chest sometimes only means 
a gash on the breast-bone. Ribs are difficult to thrust 
between unless the subject be asleep. So he said 
nothing; nor did the other lascars. Their faces im- 
mediately dropped all expression, as is the custom of 
the Oriental when there is killing on the carpet or 
any chance of trouble. Nurkeed looked long at the 
white eyeballs. He was only an African, and could 
not read characters. A big sigh—almost a groan— 
broke from him, and he went back to the furnaces. 
The lascars took up the conversation where he had 
interrupted it. They talked of the best methods of 
cooking rice. 

Nurkeed suffered considerably from lack of fresh 
air during the run to Bombay. He only came on deck 
to breathe when all the world was about; and even then a 
heavy block once dropped from a derrick within a foot 


42 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


of his head, and an apparently firm-lashed grating on 
which he set his foot, began to turn over with the inten- 
tion of dropping him on the cased cargo fifteen feet below; 
and one insupportable night the sheath-knife dropped 
from the fo’c’s’le, and this time it drew blood. So 
Nurkeed made complaint; and, when the Saarbruck 
reached Bombay, fled and buried himself among eight 
hundred thousand people, and did not sign articles till 
the ship had been a month gone from the port. Pambé 
waited too; but his Bombay wife grew clamorous, and 
he was forced to sign in the Spicheren to Hongkong, be- 
cause he realised that all play and no work gives Jack a 
ragged shirt. In the foggy China seas he thought a great 
deal of Nurkeed, and, when Elsass-Lothringen steamers 
lay in port with the Spicheren, inquired after him and 
found he had gone to England via the Cape, on the 
Gravelotte. Pambé came to England on the Worth. 
The Spicheren met her by the Nore Light. Nurkeed 
was going out with the Spicheren to the Calicut coast. 
‘Want to find a friend, my trap-mouthed coal-scuttle?’ 
said a gentleman in the mercantile service. ‘Nothing 
easier. Wait at the Nyanza Docks till he comes. Every 
one comes to the Nyanza Docks. Wait, you poor 
heathen.’ The gentleman spoke truth. There are 
three great doors in the world where, if you stand long 
enough, you shall meet any one you wish. The head 
of the Suez Canal is one, but there Death comes also; 
Charing Cross Station is the second—for inland work; 
and the Nyanza Docks is the third. At each of these 
places are men and women looking eternally for those who 
will surely come. So Pambé waited at the docks. Time 
was no object to him; and the wives could wait, as he 
did from day to day, week to week, and month to month, 
by the Blue Diamond funnels, the Red Dot smoke-stacks, 


THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG 43 


the Yellow Streaks, and the nameless dingy gypsies of 
. the sea that loaded and unloaded, jostled, whistled, and 
roared in the everlasting fog. When money failed, a 
kind gentleman told Pambé to become a Christian; and 
Pambé became one with great speed, getting his religious 
teachings between ship and ship’s arrival, and six or 
seven shillings a week for distributing tracts to mariners. 
What the faith was Pambé did not in the least care; but 
he knew if he said * Native Ki-lis-ti-an, Sar’ to men with 
long black coats he might get a few coppers; and the 
tracts were vendible at a little public-house that sold 
shag by the ‘dottel,’ which is even smaller weight than 
the ‘half-screw,’ which is less than the half-ounce, and a 
most profitable retail trade. 

But after eight months Pambé fell sick with pneu- 
monia, contracted from long standing still in slush; and 
much against his will he was forced to lie down in his 
two-and-sixpenny room raging against Fate. 

The kind gentleman sat by his bedside, and grieved 
to find that Pambé talked in strange tongues, instead of 
listening to good books, and almost seemed to become a 
benighted heathen again—till one day he was roused from 
semi-stupor by a voice in the street by the dock-head. 
‘My friend—he,’ whispered Pambé. ‘Call now—call 
Nurkeed. Quick! God has sent him!’ 

‘He wanted one of his own race,’ said the kind gentle- 
man; and, going out, he called ‘ Nurkeed!’ at the top of 
his voice. An excessively coloured man in 2 rasping 
white shirt and brand-new slops, a shining hat, and a 
breastpin, turned round. Many voyages had taught 
Nurkeed how to spend his money and made him a citizen 
of the world. | 

“Hi! Yes!’ said he, when the situation was ex-. 
plained. ‘Command him—black nigger—when I was 


44 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


in the Saarbruck. Ole Pambé, good ole Pambé. Dam 
lascar. Show him up, Sar;’ and he followed into the 
room. One glance told the stoker what the kind gentle- 
man had overlooked. Pambé was desperately poor. 
Nurkeed drove his hands deep into his pockets, then 
advanced with clenched fists on the sick, shouting, 
‘Hya, Pambé. Hya! WHee-ah! Hulla! Heh! Takilo! 
Takilo! Make fast aft, Pambé. You know, Pambé. 
You know me. Dekho, jee! Look! Dam big fat lazy 
Jascar!’ 

Pambé beckoned with his left hand. His right 
was under his pillow. Nurkeed removed his gorgeous 
hat and stooped over Pambé till he could catch a faint 
whisper. ‘How beautiful!’ said the kind gentleman. 
‘How these Orientals love like children!’ 

‘Spit him out,’ said Nurkeed, leaning over Pambé yet 
more closely. 

‘Touching the matter of that fish and onions 
said Pambé—and sent the knife home under the edge of 
the rib-bone upwards and forwards. 

There was a thick sick cough, and the body of the 
African slid slowly from the bed, his clutching hands 
letting fall a shower of silver pieces that ran across the 
room. 

‘Now I can die!’ said Pambé. 

But he did not die. He was nursed back to life with 
all the skill that money could buy, for the Law wanted 
him; and in the end he grew sufficiently healthy to be 
hanged in due and proper form. 

Pambé did not care particularly; but it was a sad 
blow to the kind gentleman. 


") 





LITTLE TOBRAH* 


‘“PRISONER’S head did not reach to the top of the dock,’ 
as the English newspapers say. ‘This case, however, was 
not reported because nobody cared by so much as a 
hempen rope for the life or death of Little Tobrah. The 
assessors in the red court-house sat upon him all through 
the long hot afternoon, and whenever they asked him a 
question he salaamed and whined. Their verdict was 
that the evidence was inconclusive, and the Judge con- 
curred. It was true that the dead body of Little To- 
brah’s sister had been found at the bottom of the well, and 
Little Tobrah was the only human being within a half 
mile radius at the time; but the child might have fallen 
in by accident. Therefore Little Tobrah was acquitted, 
and told to go where he pleased. This permission was 
not so generous as it sounds, for he had nowhere to go 
to, nothing in particular to eat, and nothing whatever to 
wear. 

He trotted into the court-compound, and sat upon the 
well-kerb, wondering whether an unsuccessful dive into 
the black water below would end in a forced voyage 
across the other Black Water. A groom put down an 
emptied nose-bag on the bricks, and Little Tobrah, being 
hungry, set himself to scrape out what wet grain the 
horse had overlooked. 

‘O Thief—and but newly set free from the terror of 
the Law! Come along!’ said the groom, and Little To- 


1Copyright, 1891, by MacmILLan & Co. 
45 


46 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


brah was led by the ear to a large and fat Englishman, 
who heard the tale of the theft. 

‘Hah!’ said the Englishman three times (only he said 
a stronger word). ‘Put him into the net and take him 
home.’ So Little Tobrah was thrown into the net of the 
cart, and, nothing doubting that he should be stuck like 
a pig, was driven to the Englishman’s house. ‘Hah!’ 
said the Englishman as before. ‘Wet grain, by Jove! 
Feed the little beggar, some of you, and we’ll make a 
riding-boy of him! See? Wet grain, good Lord!’ 

‘Give an account of yourself,’ said the Head of the 
Grooms, to Little Tobrah after the meal had been eaten, 
and the servants lay at ease in their quarters behind the 
house. ‘You are not of the groom caste, unless it be for 
the stomach’s sake. How came you into the court, and 
why? Answer, little devil’s spawn!’ 

‘There was not enough to eat,’ said Little Tobrah 
calmly. ‘This is a good place.’ 

‘Talk straight talk,’ said the Head Groom, ‘or I will 
make you clean out the stable of that large red stallion 
who bites like a camel.’ 

‘We be Telis, oil-pressers,’ said Little Tobrah, scratch- 
ing his toes in the dust. ‘We were Telis—my father, 
my mother, my brother, the elder by four years, myself, 
and the sister.’ 

‘She who was found dead in the well?’ said one who 
had heard something of the trial. 

‘Even so,’ said Little Tobrah gravely. ‘She who was 
found dead in the well. It befel upon a time, which is 
not in my memory, that the sickness came to the village 
where our oil-press stood, and first my sister was smitten 
as to her eyes, and went without sight, for it was mata— 
the smallpox. Thereafter, my father and my mother 
died of that same sickness, so we were alone—my brother 


LITTLE TOBRAH 47 


who had twelve years, I who had eight, and the sister 
who could not see. Yet were there the bullock and the 
oil-press remaining, and we made shift to press the oil as 
before. But Surjun Dass, the grain-seller, cheated us in 
his dealings; and it was always a stubborn bullock to 
drive. We put marigold flowers for the Gods upon the 
neck of the bullock, and upon the great grinding-beam 
that rose through the roof; but we gained nothing thereby, 
and Surjun Dass was a hard man.’ 

‘Bapri-bap,’ muttered the grooms’ wives, ‘to cheat a 
child so! But we know what the dbunnia-folk are, 
sisters.’ 

‘The press was an old press, and we were not strong 
men—my brother and I; nor could we fix the neck of 
the beam firmly in the shackle.’ 

‘Nay, indeed,’ said the gorgeously-clad wife of the 
Head Groom, joining the circle. ‘That is a strong man’s 
work. When I was a maid in my father’s house——’ 

‘Peace, woman,’ said the Head Groom. ‘Go on, boy.’ 

‘It is nothing,’ said Little Tobrah. ‘The big beam 
tore down the roof upon a day which is not in my mem- 
ory, and with the roof fell much of the hinder wall, and 
both together upon our bullock, whose back was broken. 
Thus we had neither home, nor press, nor bullock—my 
brother, myself, and the sister who was blind. We 
went crying away from that place, hand-in-hand, across 
the fields; and our money was seven annas and six pie. 
There was a famine in the land. I do not know the 
name of the land. So, on a night when we were sleep- 
ing, my brother took the five annas that remained to us 
and ran away. I do not know whither he went. The 
curse of my father be upon him. But I and the sister 
begged food in the villages, and there was none to give. 
Only all men said—‘‘Go to the Englishmen and they 


48 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


will give.” I did not know what the Englishmen were; 
but they said that they were white, living in tents. I 
went forward; but I cannot say whither I went, and there 
was no more food for myself or the sister. And upon a 
hot night, she weeping and calling for food, we came to a 
well, and I bade her sit upon the kerb, and thrust her in, 
for, in truth, she could not see; and it is better to die 
than to starve.’ 

‘Ai! Ahi!’ wailed the grooms’ wives in chorus; ‘he 
thrust her in, for it is better to die than to starve!’ 

‘I would have thrown myself in also, but that she 
was not dead and called to me from the bottom of the 
well, and I was afraid and ran. And one came out of 
the crops saying that I had killed her and defiled the 
well, and they took me before an Englishman, white and 
terrible, living in a tent, and me he sent here. But 
there were no witnesses, and it is better to die than to 
starve. She, furthermore, could not see with her eyes 
and was but a little child.’ 

“Was but a little child,’ echoed the Head Groom’s 
wife. ‘But who art thou, weak as a fowl and small as 
a day-old colt, what art thou ?’ 

‘I who was empty am now full,’ said Little Tobrah, 
stretching himself upon the dust. ‘And I would sleep.’ 

The groom’s wife spread a cloth over him while Little 
Tobrah slept the sleep of the just. 


BUBBLING WELL ROAD! 


Loox out on a large scale map the place where the 
Chenab river falls into the Indus fifteen miles or so above 
the hamlet of Chachuran. Five miles west of Chachuran 
lies Bubbling Well Road, and the house of the gosain or 
priest of Arti-goth. It was the priest who showed me 
the road, but it is no thanks to him that I am able to 
tell this story. 

Five miles west of Chachuran is a patch of the plumed 
jungle-grass, that turns over in silver when the wind 
blows, from ten to twenty feet high and from three 
to four miles square. In the heart of the patch hides the 
gosain of Bubbling Well Road. The villagers stone him 
when he peers into the daylight, although he Is a priest, 
and he runs back again as a strayed wolf turns into tall 
crops. He is a one-eyed man and carries, burnt between 
his brows, the impress of two copper coins. Some say 
that he was tortured by a native prince in the old days; 
for he is so old that he must have been capable of mis- 
chief in the days of Runjit Singh. His most pressing 
need at present is a halter, and the care of the British 
Government. 

These things happened when the jungle-grass was 
tall; and the villagers of Chachuran told me that a 
sounder of pig had gone into the Arti-goth patch. To 
enter jungle-grass is always an unwise proceeding, but I 
went, partly because I knew nothing of pig-hunting, and 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcmILLAN & Co, 
49 


50 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


partly because the villagers said that the big boar of the 
sounder owned foot long tushes. Therefore I wished to 
shoot him, in order to produce the tushes in after years, 
and say that I had ridden him down in fair chase. I 
took a gun and went into the hot, close patch, believing 
that it would be an easy thing to unearth one pig in ten 
square miles of jungle. Mr. Wardle, the terrier, went 
with me because he believed that I was incapable of 
existing for an hour without his advice’and countenance. 
He managed to slip in and out between the grass clumps, 
but I had to force my way, and in twenty minutes was 
as completely lost as though I had been in the heart of 
Central Africa. I did not notice this at first till I had 
grown wearied of stumbling and pushing through the 
grass, and Mr. Wardle was beginning to sit down very 
often and hang out his tongue very far. There was 
nothing but grass everywhere, and it was impossible to 
see two yards in any direction. The grass-stems held 
the heat exactly as boiler-tubes do. 

In half-an-hour, when I was devoutly wishing that I 
had left the big boar alone, I came to a narrow path 
which seemed to be a compromise between a native foot- 
path and a pig-run. It was barely six inches wide, but I 
could sidle along it in comfort. The grass was extremely 
thick here, and where the path was ill defined it was 
necessary to crush into the tussocks either with both 
hands before the face, or to back into it, leaving both 
hands free to manage the rifle. None the less it was a 
path, and valuable because it might lead to a place. 

At the end of nearly fifty yards of fair way, just when 
I was preparing to back into an unusually stiff tussock, I 
missed Mr. Wardle, who for his girth is an unusually 
frivolous dog and never keeps to heel. I called him three 
times and said aloud, ‘Where has the little beast gone 

a 


BUBBLING WELL ROAD 5i 


te?’ Then I stepped backwards several paces, for almost 
under my feet a deep voice repeated, ‘Where has the 
little beast gone?’ To appreciate an unseen voice 
thoroughly you should hear it when you are lost in 
stifling jungle-grass. I called Mr. Wardle again and the 
underground echo assisted me. At that I ceased calling 
and listened very attentively, because I thought I heard 
a man laughing in a peculiarly offensive manner. The 
heat made me sweat, but the laughter made me shake. 
There is no earthly need for laughter in high grass. It is 
indecent, as well as impolite. The chuckling stopped, 
and I took courage and continued to call till I thought 
that I had located the echo somewhere behind and below 
the tussock into which I was preparing to back just before 
I lost Mr. Wardle. I drove my rifle up to the triggers, 
between the grass-stems in a downward and forward 
‘lirection. Then I waggled it to and fro, but it did not 
seem to touch ground on the far side of the tussock as 
it should have done. Every time that I grunted with 
tlie exertion of driving a heavy rifle through thick grass, 
the grunt was faithfully repeated from below, and when 
I stopped to wipe my face the sound of low laughter was 
distinct beyond doubting. 

I went into the tussock, face first, an inch at a time, 
my mouth open and my eyes fine, full, and prominent. 
When I had overcome the resistance of the grass I found 
that I was looking straight across a black gap in the 
ground—that I was actually lying on my chest leaning 
over the mouth of a well so deep I could scarcely see the 
water in it. 

There were things in the water,—black things,—and 
the water was as black as pitch with blue scum atop. 
The laughing sound came from the noise of a little spring, 
spouting half-way down one side of the well. Some- 


U, OF ILL, Lic. 


52 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


times as the black things circled round, the trickle from 
the spring fell upon their tightly-stretched skins, and 
then the laughter changed into a sputter of mirth. One 
thing turned over on its back, as I watched, and drifted 
round and round the circle of the mossy brickwork with 
a hand and half an arm held clear of the water in a stiff 
and horrible flourish, as though it were a very wearied 
guide paid to exhibit the beauties of the place. 

I did not spend more than half-an-hour in creeping 
round that well and finding the path on the other side. 
The remainder of the journey I accomplished by feeling 
every foot of ground in front of me, and crawling like a 
snail through every tussock. I carried Mr. Wardle in 
my arms and he licked my nose. He was not frightened 
in the least, nor was I, but we wished to reach open 
ground in order to enjoy the view. My knees were 
loose, and the apple in my throat refused to slide up and 
down. ‘The path on the far side of the well was a very 
good one, though boxed in on all sides by grass, and it 
led me in time to a priest’s hut in the centre of a little 
clearing. When that priest saw my very white face 
coming through the grass he howled with terror and em- 
braced my boots; but when IJ reached the bedstead set 
outside his door I sat down quickly and Mr. Wardle 
mounted guard over me. I was not in a condition to 
take care of myself. 

When I awoke I told the priest to lead me into the 
open, out of the Arti-goth patch, and to walk slowly in 
front of me. Mr. Wardle hates natives, and the priest 
was more afraid of Mr. Wardle than of me, though we 
were both angry. He walked very slowly down a narrow 
little path from his hut. That path crossed three paths, — 
such as the one I had come by in the first instance, and 
every one of the three headed towards the Bubbling 


BUBBLING WELL ROAD 53 


Well. Once when we stopped to draw breath, I heard 
the Well laughing to itself alone in the thick grass, and 
only my need for his services prevented my firing both 
barrels into the priest’s back. 

When we came to the open the priest crashed back 
into cover, and I went to the village of Arti-goth for a 
drink. It was pleasant to be able to see the horizon all 
round, as well as the ground underfoot. 

The villagers told me that the patch of grass was ful 
of devils and ghosts, all in the service of the priest, and 
that men and women and children had entered it and had 
never returned. They said the priest used their livers 
for purposes of witchcraft. When I asked why they had 
\iot told me of this at the outset, they said that they were 
afraid they would lose their reward for bringing news of 
the pig. 

Before I left I did my best to set the patch alight, 
but the grass was too green. Some fine summer day, 
however, if the wind is favourable, a file of old newspapers 
and a box of matches will make clear the mystery of 
Bubbling Well Road. 


‘THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT”! 


THE dense wet heat that hung over the face of land, like 
a blanket, prevented all hope of sleep in the first instance. 
The cicalas helped the heat; and the yelling jackals the 
cicalas. It was impossible to sit still in the dark, empty, 
echoing house and watch the punkah beat the dead air. 
So, at ten o’clock of the night, I set my walking-stick on 
end in the middle of the garden, and waited to see how 
it would fall. It pointed directly down the moonlit road 
that leads to the City of Dreadful Night. The sound of 
its fall disturbed a hare. She limped from her form and 
ran across to a disused Mahomedan burial-ground, where 
the jawless skulls and rough-butted shank-bones, heart- 
lessly exposed by the July rains, gimmered like mother 
o’ pearl on the rain-channelled soil. The heated air and 
the heavy earth had driven the very dead upward for 
coolness’ sake. The hare limped on; snuffed curiously 
at a fragment of a smoke-stained lamp-shard, and died 
out, in the shadow of a clump of tamarisk trees. 

The mat-weaver’s hut under the lee of the Hindu 
temple was full of sleeping men who lay like sheeted 
corpses. Overhead blazed the unwinking eye of the 
Moon. Darkness gives at least a false impression of 
coolness. It was hard not to believe that the flood 
of light from above was warm. Not so hot as the Sun, 
but still sickly warm, and heating the heavy air beyond 
what was our due. Straight as a bar of polished steel 


1Copyright, 1891, by MAcmILLAN & Co. 
54 





‘THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT’ 58 


ran the road to the City of Dreadful Night; and on 
either side of the road lay corpses disposed on beds in 
fantastic attitudes—one hundred and seventy bodies 
of men. Some shrouded all in white with bound-up 
mouths; some naked and black as ebony in the strong 
light; and one—that lay face upwards with dropped jaw- 
far away from the others—silvery white and ashen gray. 

‘A leper asleep; and the remainder wearied coolies, 
servants, small shopkeepers, and drivers from the hack- 
stand hard by. The scene—a main approach to Lahore 
city, and the night a warm one in August.’ This was all 
that there was to be seen; but by no means all that one 
could see. The witchery of the moonlight was every- 
where; and the world was horribly changed. The long 
line of the naked dead, flanked by the rigid silver statue, 
was not pleasant to look upon. It was made up of 
men alone. Were the womenkind, then, forced to sleep 
in the shelter of the stifling mud-huts as best they 
might? The fretful wail of a child from a low mud-roof 
answered the question. Where the children are the 
mothers must be also to look after them. They need 
care on these sweltering nights. A black little bullet- 
head peeped over the coping, and a thin—a painfully 
thin—brown leg was slid over on to the gutter pipe. 
There was a sharp clink of glass bracelets; a woman’s 
arm showed for an instant above the parapet, twined 
itself round the lean little neck, and the child was 
dragged back, protesting, to the shelter of the bedstead. 
His thin, high-pitched shriek died out in the thick air 
almost as soon as it was raised; for even the children of 
the soil found it too hot to weep. 

More corpses; more stretches of moonlit, white road, 
a string of sleeping camels at rest by the wayside; a 
vision of scudding jackals; ekka-ponies asleep—the 


56 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


harness still on their backs, and the brass-studded 
country carts, winking in the moonlight—and again 
more corpses. Wherever a grain cart atilt, a tree 
trunk, a sawn log, a couple of bamboos and a few handfuls 
of thatch cast a shadow, the ground is covered with them. 
They he—some face downwards, arms folded, in the dust; 
some with clasped hands flung up above their heads; 
some curled up dog-wise; some thrown like limp gunny- 
bags over the side of the grain carts; and some bowed 
with their brows on their knees in the full glare of the 
Moon. It would be a comfort if they were only given to 
snoring; but they are not, and the likeness to corpses is 
unbroken in all respects save one. ‘Lhe lean dogs snuff 
at them and turn away. Here and there a tiny child 
lies on his father’s bedstead, and a protecting arm is 
thrown round it in every instance. But, for the most 
part, the children sleep with their mothers on the house- 
tops. Yellow-skinned white-toothed pariahs are not to 
be trusted within reach of brown bodies. 

A stifling hot blast from the mouth of the Delhi 
Gate nearly ends my resolution of entering the City 
of Dreadful Night at this hour. It is a compound of all 
evil savours, animal and vegetable, that a walled city 
can brew ina day anda night. The temperature within 
the motionless groves of plantain and orange-trees 
outside the city walls seems chilly by comparison. 
Heaven help all sick persons and young children within 
the city to-night! The high house-walls are still radiating 
heat savagely, and from obscure side gullies fetid breezes 
eddy that ought to poison a buffalo. But the buffaloes 
do not heed. <A drove of them are parading the vacant 
main street; stopping now and then to lay their pon- 
derous muzzles against the closed shutters of a grain 
dealer’s shop, and to blow thereon like grampuses. 


‘THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT’ 57 


Then silence follows—the silence that is full of the 
night noises of a great city. A stringed instrument of 
some kind is just, and only just, audible. High over- 
head some one throws open a window, and the rattie 
of the wood-work echoes down the empty street. On 
one of the roofs, a hookah is in full blast; and the men 
are talking softly as the pipe gutters. A little farther 
on, the noise of conversation is more distinct. A slit of 
light shows itself between the sliding shutters of a shop. 
Inside, a stubble-bearded, weary-eyed trader is balancing 
his account-books among the bales of cotton prints that 
surround him. Three sheeted figures bear him company, 
and throw in a remark from time to time. First he 
makes an entry, then a remark; then passes the back of 
his hand across his streaming forehead. The heat in the 
built-in street is fearful. Inside the shops it must be 
almost unendurable. But the work goes on steadily; 
entry, guttural growl, and uplifted hand-stroke succeed- 
ing each other with the precision of clock-work. 

A policeman—turbanless and fast asleep—lies across 
the road on the way to the Mosque of Wazir Khan. A 
bar of moonlight falls across the forehead and eyes of the 
sleeper, but he never stirs. It is close upon midnight, 
and the heat seems to be increasing. The open square 
in front of the Mosque is crowded with corpses; and a 
man must pick his way carefully for fear of treading on 
them. The moonlight stripes the Mosque’s high front of 
coloured enamel work in broad diagonal bands; and each 
‘separate dreaming pigeon in the niches and corners of the 
masonry throws a squab little shadow. Sheeted ghosts 
rise up wearily from their pallets, and flit into the dark 
depths of the building. Is it possible to climb to the 
top of the great Minars, and thence to look down on the 
city? At all events the attempt is worth making, and 


58 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the chances are that the door of the staircase will be 
unlocked. Unlocked it is; but a deeply sleeping janitor 
lies across the threshold, face turned to the Moon. A 
rat dashes out of his turban at the sound of approaching 
footsteps. ‘The man grunts, opens his eyes for a minute, 
turns round, and goes to sleep again. All the heat 
of a decade of fierce Indian summers is stored in the 
pitch-black, polished walls of the corkscrew staircase. 
Hali-way up, there is something alive, warm, and 
feathery; and it snores. Driven from step to step as 
it catches the sound of my advance, it flutters to the 
top and reveals itself as a yellow-eyed, angry kite. 
Dozens of kites are asleep on this and the other Minars, 
and on the domes below. ‘There is the shadow of a cool, 
or at least a less sultry breeze at this height; and, re- 
freshed thereby, turn to look on the City of Dreadful 
Night. 

Doré might have drawn it! Zola could describe it— 
this spectacle of sleeping thousands in the moonlight and 
in the shadow of the Moon. The roof-tops are crammed 
with men, women, and children; and the air is full of 
undistinguishable noises. ‘They are restless in the City 
of Dreadful Night; and small wonder. The marvel 
is that they can even breathe. If you gaze intently 
at the multitude, you can see that they are almost 
as uneasy as a daylight crowd; but the tumult is sub- 
dued. Everywhere, in the strong light, you can watch 
the sleepers turning to and fro; shifting their beds and 
again resettling them. In the pit-like court-yards of the 
houses there is the same movement. 

The pitiless Moon shows it all. Shows, too, the plains 
outside the city, and here and there a hand’s-breadth of 
the Ravee without the walls. Shows lastly, a splash of 
glittering silver on a house-top almost directly below the 


‘THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT’ 59 


mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to throw a 
jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the fall- 
ing water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other 
men, in far-off corners of the City of Dreadful Night, 
follow his example, and the water flashes like heliographic 
signals. A small cloud passes over the face of the Moon, 
and the city and its inhabitants—clear drawn in black 
and white before—fade into masses of black and deeper 
black. Still the unrestful noise continues, the sigh of a 
great city overwhelmed with the heat, and of a people 
seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class 
women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the 
torment be in the latticed zenanas, where a few lamps 
are still twinkling? There are footfalls in the court 
below. It is the AMuezzin—faithful minister; but he 
ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful 
that prayer is better than sleep—the sleep that will not 
come to the city. 

The Muezzin fumbles for a moment with the door of 
one of the Minars, disappears awhile, and a bull-like 
roar—a magnificent bass thunder—-tells that he has 
reached the top of the Minar. They must hear the cry 
to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across 
the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud 
drifts by and shows him outlined in black against the 
sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad chest heaving 
with the play of his lungs—‘Allah ho Akbar’; then a 
pause while another Muezzin somewhere in the direction 
of the Golden Temple takes up the call—‘ Allah ho Akbar.’ 
Again and again; four times in all; and from the bed- 
steads a dozen men have risen up already.—‘I bear 
witness that there is no God but God.’ What a sp endid 
cry it is, the proclamation of the creed that brings men 
out of their beds by scores at midnight! Once again he 


60 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


thunders through the same phrase, shaking with the 
vehemence of his own voice; and then, far and near, the 
night air rings with ‘Mahomed is the Prophet of God’ 
It is as though he were flinging his defiance to the far-off 
horizon, where the summer lightning plays and leaps 
like a bared sword. Every Muezzin in the city is in full 
cry, and some men on the roof-tops are beginning to 
kneel. A long pause precedes the last cry, ‘La ilaha 
Illallah,’ and the silence closes up on it, as the ram on the 
head of a cotton-bale. 

The Muezzin stumbles down the dark stairway 
grumbling in his beard. He passes the arch of the 
entrance and disappears. ‘Then the stifling silence settles 
down over the City of Dreadful Night. The kites on the 
Minar sleep again, snoring more loudly, the hot breeze 
comes up in puffs and lazy eddies, and the Moon slides 
down towards the horizon. Seated with both elbows on 
the parapet of the tower, one can watch and wonder over 
that heat-tortured hive till the dawn. ‘How do they 
live down there? What do they think of? When will 
they awake?’ More tinkling of sluiced water-pots; faint 
jarring of wooden bedsteads moved into or out of the 
shadows; uncouth music of stringed instruments softened 
by distance into a plaintive wail, and one low grumble of 
far-off thunder. In the courtyard of the mosque the 
janitor, who lay across the threshold of the Minar when 
I came up, starts wildly in his sleep, throws his hands 
above his head, mutters something, and falls back again. 
Lulled by the snoring of the kites—they snore like over- 
gorged humans—I drop off into an uneasy doze, conscious 
that three o’clock has struck, and that there is a slight— 
a very slight—coolness in the atmosphere. ‘The city is 
absolutely quiet now, but for some vagrant dog’s love: 
song. Nothing save dead heavy sleep. 


‘THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT’ 61 


Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the 
Moon has gone out. The very dogs are still, and I 
watch for the first light of the dawn before making my 
way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. 
The morning call is about to begin, and my night watch 
is over. ‘Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!’ The 
east grows gray, and presently saffron; the dawn wind 
comes up as though the Muezzin had summoned it; and, 
as one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its 
bed and turns its face towards the dawning day. With 
return of life comes return of sound. First a low whis- 
per, then a deep bass hum; for it must be remembered 
that the entire city is on the house-tops. My eyelids 
weighed down with the arrears of long deferred sleep, I 
escape from the Minar through the courtyard and out 
into the square beyond, where the sleepers have risen, 
stowed away the bedsteads, and are discussing the morn: 
ing hookah. The minute’s freshness of the air has 
gone, and it is as hot as at first. 

‘Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?’ 
What is it? Something borne on men’s shoulders comes 
by in the half-light, and I stand back. A woman’s 
corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a bystander 
says, ‘She died at midnight from the heat.’ So the city 
was of Death as well as Night after all. 


GEORGIE PORGIE!' 


Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, 
Kissed the girls and made them cry. 
When the girls came out to play 
Georgie Porgie ran away. 


Ir you will admit that a man has no right to enter his 
drawing-room early in the morning, when the housemaid 
is setting things right and clearing away the dust, you 
will concede that civilised people who eat out of china 
and own card-cases have no right to apply their standard 
of nght and wrong to an unsettled land. When the 
place 1s made fit for their reception, by those men who 
are told off to the work, they can come up, bringing in 
their trunks their own society and the Decalogue, and 
all the other apparatus. Where the Queen’s Law does 
not carry, it is irrational to expect an observance of other 
and weaker rules. The men who run ahead of the cars 
of Decency and Propriety, and make the jungle ways 
straight, cannot be judged in the same manner as the 
stay-at-home folk of the ranks of the regular Tchin. 

Not many months ago the Queen’s Law stopped a few 
miles north of Thayetmyo on the Irrawaddy. There was 
no very strong Public Opinion up to that limit, but it 
existed to keep men in order. When the Government 
said that the Queen’s Law must carry up to Bhamo and 
the Chinese border the order was given, and some men 
whose desire was to be ever a little in advance of the 


ICopyright, 1891, by Macmitian & Co. 
62 


GEORGIE PORGIE 63 


rush of Respectability flocked forward with the troops. 
These were the men who could never pass examinations, 
and would have been too pronounced in their ideas for 
the administration of bureau-worked Provinces. The 
Supreme Government stepped in as soon as might be, 
with codes and regulations, and all but reduced New 
Burma to the dead Indian level; but there was a short 
time during which strong men were necessary and 
ploughed a field for themselves. 

Among the fore-runners of Civilisation was Georgie 
Porgie, reckoned by all who knew him a strong man. 
He held an appointment in Lower Burma when the order 
came to break the Frontier, and his friends called him 
Georgie Porgie because of the singularly Burmese-like 
manner in which he sang a song whose first line is some- 
thing like the words ‘Georgie Porgie.’ Most men who 
have been in Burma will know the song. It means: 
‘Puff, puff, puff, puff, great steamboat!’ Georgie sang 
it to his banjo, and his friends shouted with delight, 
so that you could hear them far away in the teak- 
forest. 

When he went to Upper Burma he had no special 
regard for God or Man, but he knew how to make him- 
self respected, and to carry out the mixed Military-Civil 
duties that fell to most men’s share in those months. 
He did his office work and entertained, now and again, 
the detachments of fever-shaken soldiers who blundered 
through his part of the world in search of a flying party 
of dacoits. Sometimes he turned out and dressed down 
dacoits on his own account; for the country was still 
smouldering and would blaze when least expected. He 
enjoyed these charivaris, but the dacoits were not so 
amused. All the officials who came in contact with him 
departed with the idea that Georgie Porgie was a valuable 


64 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


person, well able to take care of himself, and, on that 
belief, he was left to his own devices. 

At the end of a few months he wearied of his solitude, 
and cast about for company and refinement. The 
Queen’s Law had hardly begun to be felt in the country, 
and Public Opinion, which is more powerful than the 
QDueen’s Law, had yet to come. Also, there was a cus- 
tom in the country which allowed a white man to take to 
himself a wife of the Daughters of Heth upon due pay- 
ment. The marriage was not quite so binding as is the 
nikkah ceremony among Mahomedans, but the wife was 
very pleasant. 

When all our troops are back from Burma there will 
be a proverb in their mouths, ‘As thrifty as a Burmese 
wife,’ and pretty English ladies will wonder what in the 
world it means. 

The headman of the village next to Georgie Porgie’s 
post had a fair daughter who had seen Georgie Porgie 
and loved him from afar. When news went abroad that 
the Englishman with the heavy hand who lived in the 
stockade was looking for a housekeeper, the headman 
came in and explained that, for five hundred rupees 
down, he would entrust his daughter to Georgie Porgie’s 
keeping, to be maintained in all honour, respect, and 
comfort, with pretty dresses, according to the custom of 
the country. This thing was done, and Georgie Porgie 
never repented it. 

He found his rough-and-tumble house put straight 
and made comfortable, his hitherto unchecked expenses 
cut down by one half, and himself petted and made much 
of by his new acquisition, who sat at the head of his 
table and sang songs to him and ordered his Madrassee 
servants about, and was in every way as sweet and merry 
and honest and winning a Little woman as the most 


GEORGIE PORGIE 6s 


exacting of bachelors could have desired. No race, men 
say who know, produces such good wives and heads of 
households as the Burmese. When the next detachment 
tramped by on the war-path the Subaltern in Command 
found at Georgie Porgie’s table a hostess to be deferential 
to, a woman to be treated in every way as one occupying 
an assured position. When he gathered his men together 
next dawn and replunged into the jungle he thought re- 
gretfully of the nice little dinner and the pretty face, and 
envied Georgie Porgie from the bottom of his heart. Yet 
he was engaged to a girl at Home, and that is how some 
men are constructed. 

The Burmese girl’s name was not a pretty one; but as 
she was promptly christened Georgina by Georgie Porgie, 
the blemish did not matter. Georgie Porgie thought well 
of the petting and the general comfort, and vowed that 
he had never spent five hundred rupees to a better end. 

After three months of domestic life, a great idea 
struck him. Matrimony—English matrimony—could 
not be such a bad thing after all. If he were so thor- 
oughly comfortable at the Back of Beyond with this 
Burmese girl who smoked cheroots, how much more 
comfortable would he be with a sweet English maiden 
who would not smoke cheroots, and would play upon a 
piano instead of a banjo? Also he had a desire to return 
to his kind, to hear a Band once more, and to feel how 
it felt to wear a dress-suit again. Decidedly, Matrimony 
would be a very good thing. He thought the matter 
out at length of evenings, while Georgina sang to him, 
or asked him why he was so silent, and whether she had 
done anything to offend him. Ashe thought, he smoked, 
and as he smoked he looked at Georgina, and in his 
fancy turned her into a fair, thrifty, amusing, merry, 
little English girl, with hair coming low down on het | 


66 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


forehead, and perhaps a cigarette between her lips. 
Certainly, not a big, thick, Burma cheroot, of the brand 
that Georgina smoked. He would wed a girl with 
Georgina’s eyes and most of her ways. But not all. 
She could be improved upon. Then he blew thick 
smoke-wreaths through his nostrils and stretched himself. 
He would taste marriage. Georgina had helped him to 
save money, and there were six months’ leave due to him. 

‘See here, little woman,’ he said, ‘we must put by 
more money for these next three months. I want it.’ 
That was a direct slur on Georgina’s housekeeping; for 
she prided herself on her thrift; but since her God wanted 
money she would do her best. 

‘You want money?’ she said with a little laugh. 1% 
have money. Look!’ She ran to her own room and 
fetched out a small bag of rupees. ‘Of all that you give 
me, I keep back some. See! One hundred and seven 
rupees. Can you want more money than that? Take 
it. It is my pleasure if you use it.’ She spread out the 
money on:the table and pushed it towards him, with her 
quick, little, pale yellow fingers. 

Georgie Porgie never referred to economy in the house- 
hold again. 

Three months later, after the dispatch and receipt of 
several mysterious letters which Georgina could not 
understand, and hated for that reason, Georgie Porgie 
said that he was going away and she must return to her 
father’s house and stay there. 

Georgina wept. She would go with her God from the 
world’s end to the world’s end. Why should she leave 
him? She loved him. 

‘I am only going to Rangoon,’ said Georgie Porgie. 
‘T shall be back in a month, but it is safer to stay with 
your father. I will leave you two hundred rupees.’ 


GEORGIE PORGIE ay 


‘If you go for a month, what need of two hundred? 
Fifty are more than enough. There is some evil here. 
Do not go, or at least let me go with you.’ 

Georgie Porgie does not like to remember that scene 
even at this date. In the end he got rid of Georgina by 
a compromise of seventy-five rupees. She would not 
take more. Then he went by steamer and rail to Ran- 
goon. 

The mysterious letters had granted him six months’ 
leave. ‘The actual flight and an idea that he might have 
been treacherous hurt severely at the time, but as soon as 
the big steamer was well out into the blue, things were 
easier, and Georgina’s face, and the queer little stockaded 
house, and the memory of the rushes of shouting dacoits 
by night, the cry and struggle of the first man that he had 
ever killed with his own hand, and a hundred other more 
intimate things, faded and faded out of Georgie Porgie’s 
heart, and the vision of approaching England took its 
place. ‘The steamer was full of men on leave, all ram- 
pantly jovial souls who had shaken off the dust and sweat 
of Upper Burma and were as merry as schoolboys. ‘They 
helped Georgie Porgie to forget. 

Then came England with its luxuries and decencies 
and comforts, and Georgie Porgie walked in a pleasant 
dream upon pavements of which he had nearly forgotten 
the ring, wondering why men in their senses ever left 
Town. He accepted his keen delight in his furlough as 
the reward of his services. Providence further arranged 
for him another and greater delight—all the pleasures 
of a quiet English wooing, quite different from the brazen 
businesses of the East, when half the community stand 
back and bet on the result, and the other half wonder 
what Mrs. So-and-So will say to it. 

It was a pleasant girl and a perfect summer, and a big 


68 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


country-house near Petworth where there are acres and 
acres of purple heather and high-grassed water-meadows 
to wander through. Georgie Porgie felt that he had at 
last found something worth the living for, and naturally 
assumed that the next thing to do was to ask the girl to 
share his life in India. She, in her ignorance, was willing 
to go. On this occasion there was no bartering with a 
village headman. ‘There was a fine middle-class wedding 
in the country, with a stout Papa and a weeping Mamma, 
and a best-man in purple and fine linen, and six snub- 
nosed girls from the Sunday School to throw roses on the 
path between the tombstones up to the Church door. 
The local paper described the affair at great length, even 
down to giving the hymns in full. But that was because 
the Direction were starving for want of material. 

Then came a honeymoon at Arundel, and the Mamma 
wept copiously before she allowed her one daughter to 
sail away to India under the care of Georgie Porgie the 
Bridegroom. Beyond any question, Georgie Porgie was 
immensely fond of his wife, and she was devoted to him 
as the best and greatest man in the world. When he re- 
ported himself at Bombay he felt justified in demanding 
a good station for his wife’s sake; and, because he had 
made a little mark in Burma and was beginning to be 
appreciated, they allowed him nearly all that he asked 
for, and posted him to a station which we will call 
Sutrain. It stood upon several hills, and was styled 
officially a ‘Sanitarium,’ for the good reason that the 
drainage was utterly neglected. Here Georgie Porgie 
settled down, and found married life come very naturally 
to him. He did not rave, as do many bridegrooms, over 
the strangeness and delight of seeing his own true love 
sitting down to breakfast with him every morning ‘as 
though it were the most natural thing in the world.’ 


GEORGIE PORGIE 59 


“He had been there before,’ as the Americans say, and, 
checking the merits of his own present Grace by those of 
Georgina, he was more and more inclined to think that 
he had done well. 

But there was no peace or comfort across the Bay of 
Bengal, under the teak-trees where Georgina lived with 
her father, waiting for Georgie Porgie to return. The 
headman was old, and remembered the war of ’51. He 
had been to Rangoon, and knew something of the ways of 
the Kullahs. Sitting in front of his door in the evenings, 
he taught Georgina a dry philosophy which did not con- 
sole her in the least. 

The trouble was that she loved Georgie Porgie just as 
much as the French girl in the English History books 
loved the priest whose head was broken by the king’s 
bullies. One day she disappeared from the village with 
all the rupees that Georgie Porgie had given her, and a 
very small smattering of English—also gained from 
Georgie Porgie. 

The headman was angry at first, but lit a fresh cheroot 
and said something uncomplimentary about the sex in 
general. Georgina had started on a search for Georgie 
Porgie, who might be in Rangoon, or across the Black 
Water, or dead, for aught that she knew. Chance 
favoured her. An old Sikh policeman told her that 
Georgie Porgie had crossed the Black Water. She tooka 
steerage-passage from Rangoon and went to Calcutta; 
keeping the secret of her search to herself. 

In India every trace of her was lost for six weeks, 
and no one knows what trouble of heart she must have 
undergone. 

She reappeared, four hundred miles north of Calcutta, 
steadily heading northwards, very worn and haggard, but 
very fixed in her determination to find Georgie Porgie. 


qo LIFE’S HANDICAP 


She could not understand the language of the people; 
but India is infinitely charitable, and the women-folk 
along the Grand Trunk gave her food. Something made 
her believe that Georgie Porgie was to be found at the 
end of that pitiless road. She may have seen a sepoy who 
knew him in Burma, but of this no one can be certain. 
At last, she found a regiment on the line of march, and 
met there one of the many subalterns whom Georgie 
Porgie had invited to dinner in the far-off, old days of the 
dacoit-hunting. ‘There was a certain amount of amws3e- 
ment among the tents when Georgina threw herself at the 
man’s feet and began to cry. There was no amusement 
when her story was told; but a collection was made, aad 
that was more to the point. One of the subalterns knew 
of Georgie Porgie’s whereabouts, but not of his marriage. 
So he told Georgina and she went her way joyfully to the 
north, in a railway carriage where there was rest for tired 
feet and shade for a dusty little head. The marches 
from the train through the hills into Sutrain were trying, 
but Georgina had money, and families journeying in 
bullock-carts gave her help. It was an almost miraculous 
journey, and Georgina felt sure that the good spirits of 
Burma were looking after her. ‘The hill-road to Sutrain 
is a chilly stretch, and Georgina caught a bad cold. Still 
there was Georgie Porgie at the end of all the trouble to 
take her up in his arms and pet her, as he used to do in 
the old days when the stockade was shut for the night and 
he had approved of the evening meal. Georgina went 
forward as fast as she could; and her good spirits did her 
one last favour. 

An Englishman stopped her, in the twilight, just at 
the turn of the road into Sara saying, ‘Good Heavens! 
What are you doing here?’ 

He was Gillis, the man who had been Georgie Porgie’s 


GEORGIE PORGIE a 


assistant in Upper Burma, and who occupied the next 
post to Georgie Porgie’s in the jungle. Georgie Porgie 
had applied to have him to work with at Sutrain because 
he liked him. 

‘I have come,’ said Georgina simply. ‘It was such a 
long way, and I have been months in coming. Where is 
his house?’ 

Gillis gasped. He had seen enough of Georgina in 
the old times to know that explanations would be use-. 
less. You cannot explain things to the Oriental. You 
must show. 

‘T’ll take you there,’ said Gillis, and he led Georgina 
ofi the road, up the cliff, by a little pathway, to the back 
of a house set on a platform cut into the hillside. 

The lamps were just lit, but the curtains were not 
drawn. ‘Now look,’ said Gillis, stopping in front of the 
drawing-room window. Georgina looked and saw Georgie 
Porgie and the Bride. 

She put her hand up to her hair, which had come 
out of its top-knot and was straggling about her face. 
She tried to set her ragged dress in order, but the dress 
was past pulling straight, and she coughed a queer little 
cough, for she really had taken a very bad cold. Gillis 
looked, too, but while Georgina only looked at the Bride 
once, turning her eyes always on Georgie Porgie, Gillis 
looked at the Bride all the time. 

“What are you going to do?’ said Gillis, who held 
Georgina by the wrist, in case of any unexpected rush 
into the lamplight. ‘Will you go in and tell that English 
woman that you lived with her husband?’ 

‘No,’ said Georgina faintly. ‘Letmego. Iam going 
away. I swear that I am going away.’ She twisted 
herself free and ran off into the dark. 

‘Poor little beast!’ said Gillis, dropping on to the main 


72 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


road. ‘I’d ha’ given her something to get back to Burma 
with. What a narrow shave though! And that angel 
would never have forgiven it.’ 

This seems to prove that the devotion of Gillis was 
not entirely due to his affection for Georgie Porgie. 

The Bride and the Bridegroom came out into the 
verandah after dinner, in order that the smoke of Georgie 
Porgie’s cheroots might not hang in the new drawing- 
room curtains. 

‘What is that noise down there?’ said the Bride. 
Both listened. 

‘Oh,’ said Georgie Porgie, ‘I suppose some brute of a 
hillman has been beating his wife.’ 

‘Beating—his—wife! How ghastly!’ said the Bride. 
‘Fancy your beating me!’ She slipped an arm round 
her husband’s waist, and, leaning her head against his 
shoulder, looked out across the cloud-filled valley in deep 
content and security. 

But it was Georgina crying, all by herself, down the 
hillside, among the stones of the water-course where the 
mashermen wash the clothes. 


NABOTH! 


Tuts was how it happened; and the truth is also an 
allegory of Empire. 

I met him at the corner of my garden, an empty 
basket on his head, and an unclean cloth round his loins. 
That was all the property to which Naboth had the 
shadow of a claim when I first saw him. He opened 
our acquaintance by begging. He was very thin and 
showed nearly as many ribs as his basket; and he told 
me a long story about fever and a lawsuit, and an iron 
cauldron that had been seized by the court in execution 
of a decree. I put my hand into my pocket to help 
Naboth, as kings of the East have helped alien adven- 
turers to the loss of their kingdoms. A rupee had 
hidden in my waistcoat lining. I never knew it was 
there, and gave the trove to Naboth as a direct gift from 
Heaven. He replied that I was the only legitimate 
Protector of the Poor he had ever known. 

Next morning he reappeared, a little fatter in the 
round, and curled himself into knots in the front ve- 
randah. He said I was his father and his mother, and 
the direct descendant of all the gods in his Pantheon, 
besides controlling the destinies of the universe. He 
himself was but a sweetmeat-seller, and much less 
important than the dirt under my feet. I had heard 
this sort of thing before, so I asked him what he wanted. 
My rupee, quoth Naboth, had raised him to the ever- 


1Copyright, 1891, by Macm1Ltan & Co. 
73 


44 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


jasting heavens, and he wished to prefer a request. He 
wished to establish a sweetmeat-pitch near the house of 
his benefactor, to gaze on my revered countenance as I 
went to and fro illumining the world. I was graciously 
pleased to give permission, and he went away with his 
head between his knees. 

Now at the far end of my garden, the ground slopes 
toward the public road, and the slope is crowned with a 
thick shrubbery. There is a short carriage-road from 
the house to the Mall, which passes close to the shrub- 
bery. Next afternoon I saw that Naboth had seated 
himself at the bottom of the slope, down in the dust of the 
public road, and in the full glare of the sun, with a starved 
basket of greasy sweets in front of him. He had gone into 
trade once more on the strength of my munificent doma- 
tion, and the ground was as Paradise by my honoured 
favour. Remember, there was only Naboth, his basket, 
the sunshine, and the gray dust when the sap of my Em- 
pire first began. 

Next day he had moved himself up the slope nearer 
to my shrubbery, and waved a palm-leaf fan to keep the 
flies off the sweets. So I judged that he must have done 
a fair trade. 

Four days later I noticed that he had backed himself 
and his basket under the shadow of the shrubbery, and had 
tied an Isabella-coloured rag between two branches in order 
to make more shade. ‘There were plenty of sweets in his 
basket. Ithought that trade must certainly be looking up. 

Seven weeks later the Government took up a plot of 
ground for a Chief Court close to the end of my com- 
pound, and employed nearly four hundred coolies on the 
foundations. Naboth bought a blue and white striped 
blanket, a brass lamp-stand, and a small boy, to cope 
with the rush of trade, which was tremendous. 


NABOTH 95 


Five days later he bought a huge, fat, red-backed 
account-book, and a glass inkstand. Thus I saw that 
the coolies had been getting into his debt, and that com- 
merce was increasing on legitimate lines of credit. Also 
I saw that the one basket had grown into three, and that 
Naboth had backed and hacked into the shrubbery, and 
made himself a nice little clearing for the proper display 
of the basket, the blanket, the books, and the boy. 

One week and five days later he had built a mud fire- 
place in the clearing, and the fat account-book was over- 
flowing. He said that God created few Englishmen of 
my kind, and that I was the incarnation of all human 
virtues. He offered me some of his sweets as tribute, 
and by accepting these I acknowledged him as my feuda- 
tory under the skirt of my protection. 

Three weeks later I noticed that the boy was in the 
habit of cooking Naboth’s mid-day meal for him, and 
Naboth was beginning to grow a stomach. He had 
hacked away more of my shrubbery and owned another 
and a fatter account-book. 

Eleven weeks later Naboth had eaten his way nearly 
snrough that shrubbery, and there was a reed hut with a 
vedstead outside it, standing in the little glade that he 
had eroded. Two dogs and a baby slept on the bedstead. 
So I fancied Naboth had taken a wife. He said that he 
had, by my favour, done this thing, and that I was 
several times finer than Krishna. 

Six weeks and two days later a mud wall had grown 
up at the back of the hut. There were fowls in front 
and it smelt a little. The Municipal Secretary said that 
a cess-pool was forming in the public road from the 
drainage of my compound, and that I must take steps to 
clear it away. I spoke to Naboth. He said I was Lord 
Paramount of his earthly concerns. and the garden was 


76 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


all my own property, and sent me some more sweets in a 
second-hand duster. 

Two months later a coolie bricklayer was killed in a 
scuffle that took place opposite Naboth’s Vineyard. The 
Inspector of Police said it was a serious case; went into 
my servants’ quarters; insulted my butler’s wife, and 
wanted to arrest my butler. The curious thing about the 
murder was that most of the coolies were drunk at the 
time. Naboth pointed out that my name was a strong 
shield between him and his enemies, and he expected that 
another baby would be born to him shortly. 

Four months later the hut was a// mud walls, very 
solidly built, and Naboth had used most of my shrubbery | 
for his five goats. A silver watch and an aluminium 
chain shone upon his very round stomach. My servants 
were alarmingly drunk several times, and used to wastt 
the day with Naboth when they got the chance. I spoke 
to Naboth. He said, by my favour and the glory of my 
countenance, he would make all his women-folk ladies, 
and that if any one hinted that he was running an illicit 
still under the shadow of the tamarisks, why, I, his 
Suzerain, was to prosecute. 

A week later he hired a man to make several dozen 
square yards of trellis-work to put around the back of his 
hut, that his women-folk might be screened from the 
public gaze. The man went away in the evening, and 
left his day’s work to pave the short cut from the public 
road to my house. I was driving home in the dusk, and 
turned the corner by Naboth’s Vineyard quickly. The 
next thing I knew was that the horses of the phaeton 
were stamping and plunging in the strongest sort of 
bamboo net-work. Both beasts came down. One rose 
with nothing more than chipped knees. The other was 
so badly kicked that I was forced to shoot him. 


NABOTH 77 


Naboth is gone now, and his hut is ploughed into its 
native mud with sweetmeats instead of salt for a sign 
that the place is accursed. I have built a summer-house 
to overlook the end of the garden, and it is as a fort on 
my frontier whence I guard my Empire. 

I know exactly how Ahab felt. He has been shame- 
fully misrepresented in the Scriptures. 


THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS! 


Like Mr. Bunyan of old, I, Duncan Parrenness, Writer 
to the Most Honourable the East India Company, in this 
God-forgotten city of Calcutta, have dreamed a dream, 
and never since that Kitty my mare fell lame have I 
been so troubled. Therefore, lest I should forget my 
dream, I have made shift to set it down here. Though 
Heaven knows how unhandy the pen is to me who was 
always readier with sword than ink-horn when I left 
London two long years since. 

When the Governor-General’s great dance (that he 
gives yearly at the latter end of November)was finisht, 
I had gone to mine own room which looks over that 
sullen, un-English stream, the Hoogly, scarce so sober as 
I might have been. Now, roaring drunk in the West is 
but fuddled in the East, and I was drunk Nor’-Nor’ 
Easterly as Mr. Shakespeare might have said. Yet, in 
spite of my liquor, the cool night winds (though I have 
heard that they breed chills and fluxes innumerable) 
sobered me somewhat; and I remembered that I had 
been but a little wrung and wasted by all the sicknesses 
of the past four months, whereas those young bloods that 
came eastward with me in the same ship had been all, a 
month back, planted to Eternity in the foul soil north of 
Writers’ Buildings. So then, I thanked God mistily 
(though, to my shame, I never kneeled down to do so) for 
license to live, at least till March should be upon us again. 


ICopyright, 1891, by Macmiiian & Co. 
78 


THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 79 


Indeed, we that were alive (and our number was less by 
far than those who had gone to their last account in the 
hot weather late past) had made very merry that evening, 
by the ramparts of the Fort, over this kindness of Provi- 
dence; though our jests were neither witty nor such as I 
should have liked my Mother to hear. 

When I had lain down (or rather thrown me on my 
bed) and the fumes of my drink had a little cleared away, 
I found that I could get no sleep for thinking of a thou- 
sand things that were better left alone. First, and it 
was a long time since I had thought of her, the sweet face 
of Kitty Somerset, drifted, as it might have been drawn in 
a picture, across the foot of my bed, so plainly, that I 
almost thought she had been present in the body. Then 
IT remembered how she drove me to this accursed country 
to get rich, that J might the more quickly marry her, our 
parents on both sides giving their consent; and then how 
she thought better (or worse may be) of her troth, and 
wed Tom Sanderson but a short three months after I had 
sailed. From Kitty I fell a-musing on Mrs. Vansuythen, 
a tall pale woman with violet eyes that had come to Cal- 
cutta from the Dutch Factory at Chinsura, and had set 
all our young men, and not a few of the factors, by the 
ears. Some of our ladies, it is true, said that she had 
never a husband or marriage-lines at all; but women, and 
specially those who have led only indifferent good lives 
themselves, are cruel hard one on another. Besides, 
Mrs. Vansuythen was far prettier than them all. She 
had been most gracious to me at the Governor-General’s 
rout, and indeed I was looked upon by all as her preux 
chevalier—which is French for a much worse word. Now, 
whether I cared so much as the scratch of a pin for this 
same Mrs. Vansuythen (albeit I had vowed eternal love 
three days after we met) I knew not then nor did till 


80 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


later on; but mine own pride, and a skill in the small 
sword that no man in Calcutta could equal, kept me in 
her affections. So that I believed I worshipt her. 

When I had dismist her violet eyes from my thoughts, 
my reason reproacht me for ever having followed her at 
all; and I saw how the one year that I had lived in this 
land had so burnt and seared my mind with the flames 
of a thousand bad passions and desires, that I had aged 
ten months for each one in the Devil’s school. Whereat 
I thought of my Mother for a while, and was very 
penitent: making in my sinful tipsy mood a thousand 
vows of reformation—all since broken, I fear me, again 
and again. To-morrow, says I to myself, I will live 
cleanly for ever. And I smiled dizzily (the liquor being 
still strong in me) to think of the dangers I had escaped; 
and built all manner of fine Castles in Spain, whereof a 
shadowy Kitty Somerset that had the violet eyes and the 
sweet slow speech of Mrs. Vansuythen, was always Queen. 

Lastly, a very fine and magnificent courage (that 
doubtless had its birth in Mr. Hastings’ Madeira) grew 
upon me, till it seemed that I could become Governor- 
General, Nawab, Prince, ay, even the Great Mogul him- 
self, by the mere wishing of it. Wherefore, taking my 
first steps, random and unstable enough, towards my new 
kingdom, I kickt my servants sleeping without till they 
howled and ran from me, and called Heaven and Earth 
to witness that I, Duncan Parrenness, was a Writer in 
the service of the Company and afraid ofnoman. ‘Then, 
seeing that neither the Moon nor the Great Bear were 
minded to accept my challenge, I lay down again and 
must have fallen asleep. 

I was waked presently by my last words repeated two 
ér three times, und I saw that there had come into the 
room a drunken man, as I thought, from Mr. Hastings’ 


THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 81 


rout. He sate down at the foot of my bed in all the 
world as it belonged to him, and I took note, as well as 
T could, that his face was somewhat like mine own grown 
older, save when it changed to the face of the Governor- 
General or my father, dead these six months. But this 
seemed to me only natural, and the due result of too much 
wine; and I was so angered at his entry all unannounced, 
that I told him, not over civilly, to go. To all my words 
he made no answer whatever, only saying slowly, as 
though it were some sweet morsel: ‘Writer in the Com- 
pany’s service and afraid of no man.’ Then he stops 
short, and turning round sharp upon me, says that one of 
my kidney need fear neither man nor devil; that I was a 
brave young man, and like enough, should I live so long, 
to be Governor-General. But for all these things (and I 
suppose that he meant thereby the changes and chances 
of our shifty life in these parts) I must pay my price. 
By this time I had sobered somewhat, and being well 
waked out of my first sleep, was disposed to look upon 
the matter as a tipsy man’s jest. So, says I merrily: 
‘And what price shall I pay for this palace of mine, which 
is but twelve feet square, and my five poor pagodas a 
month? The Devil take you and your jesting: I have 
paid my price twice over in sickness.’ At that moment 
my man turns full towards me: so that by the moonlight 
I could see every line and wrinkle of his face. Then my 
drunken mirth died out of me, as I have seen the waters 
of our great rivers die away in one night; and I, Duncan 
Parrenness, who was afraid of no man, was taken with a 
more deadly terror than I hold it has ever been the lot 
of mortal man to know. For I saw that his face was 
my very own, but marked and lined and scarred with the 
furrows of disease and much evil living—as I once, when 
I was (Lord help me) very drunk indeed, have seen mine 


82 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


own face, all white and drawn and grown old, in a mirror. 
I take it that any man would have been even more 
greatly feared than I. For I am in no way wanting in 
courage. 

After I had lain still for a little, sweating in my agony 
and waiting until I should awake from this terrible dream 
(for dream I knew it to be) he says again, that I must pay 
my price, and a little after, as though it were to be given 
in pagodas and sicca rupees: ‘What price will you pay?’ 
Says I, very softly: ‘For God’s sake let me be, whoever 
you are, and I will mend my ways from to-night.’ Says 
he, laughing a little at my words, but otherwise making 
no motion of having heard them: ‘Nay, I would only 
rid so brave a young ruffler as yourself of much that will 
be a great hindrance to you on your way through life in 
the Indies; for believe me,’ and here he looks full on 
me once more, ‘there is noreturn.’ At all this rigmarole, 
which I could not then understand, I was a good deal 
put aback and waited for what should come next. Says 
he very calmly, ‘Give me your trust in man.’ At that I 
saw how heavy would be my price, for I never doubted 
but that he could take from me all that he asked, and my 
head was, through terror and wakefulness, altogether 
cleared of the wine I had drunk. So I takes him up 
very short, crying that I was not so wholly bad as he 
would make believe, and that I trusted my fellows to the 
full as much as they were worthy of it. ‘It was none of 
my fault,’ says I, ‘if one half of them were hars and the 
other half deserved to be burnt in the hand, and I would 
once more ask him to have done with his questions.’ 
Then I stopped, a little afraid, it is true, to have let my 
tongue so run away with me, but he took no notice of 
this, and only laid his hand lightly on my left breast and 
I felt very cold there for a while. Then he says, laughing 


THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 83 


more: ‘Give me your faith inwomen.’ At that I started 
in my bed as though I had been stung, for I thought of 
my sweet mother in England, and for a while fancied that 
my faith in God’s best creatures could neither be shaken 
nor stolen from me. But later, Myself’s hard eyes being 
upor me, I fell to thinking, for the second time that 
night, of Kitty (she that jilted me and married Tom 
Sanderson) and of Mistress Vansuythen, whom only my 
devilish pride mademe follow, and how she was even worse 
than Kitty, and I worst of them all—seeing that with my 
life’s work to be done, I must needs go dancing down the 
Devil’s swept and garnished causeway, because, forsooth, 
there was a light woman’s smile at the end of it. And I 
thought that all women in the world were either like 
Kitty or Mistress Vansuythen (as indeed they have ever 
since been to me) and this put me to such an extremity 
of rage and sorrow, that I was beyond word glad when 
Myself’s hand fell again on my left breast, and I was ne 
more troubled by these follies. 

After this he was silent for a little, and I made sure 
that he must go or I awake ere long: but presently he 
speaks again (and very softly) that I was a fool to care 
for such follies as those he had taken from me, and that 
ere he went he would only ask me for a few other trifles 
such as no man, or for matter of that boy either, would 
keep about him in this country. And so it happened 
that he took from out of my very heart as it were, 
looking all the time into my face with my own eyes, as 
much as remained to me of my boy’s soul and conscience. 
This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that 
I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had 
travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly 
living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a 
certain goodness of heart which, when TI was sober (or 


84 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before 
the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in 
place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. Iam 
not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear 
that what I have just written may not be readily under- 
stood. Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, 
when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is 
burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the 
more sorrowful state of manhood: as our staring India 
day changes into night with never so much as the grav of 
twilight to temper the two extremes. This shall perhaps 
make my state more clear, if it be remembered that my 
torment was ten times as great as comes in the natural 
course of nature to any man. At that time I dared not 
think of the change that had come over me, and all in 
one night: though I have often thought of it since. ‘I 
have paid the price,’ says I, my teeth chattering, for I was 
deadly cold, ‘and what is my return?’ At this time it 
was nearly dawn, and Myself had begun to grow pale 
and thin against the white light in the east, as my mother 
used to tell me is the custom of ghosts and devils and 
the like. He made as if he would go, but my words 
stopt him and he laughed—as I remember that I laughed 
when I ran Angus Macalister through the sword-arm last 
August, because he said that Mrs. Vansuythen was no 
better than she should be. ‘What return?’—says he, 
catching up my last words—‘Why, strength to live as 
long as God or the Devil pleases, and so long as you live 
my young master, my gift.’ With that he puts some- 
thing into my hand, though it was still too dark to see 
what it was, and when next I lookt up he was gone. 

When the light came I made shift to behold his gift, 
and saw that it was a little piece of dry bread. 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA 
MULVANEY 


Wohl auf, my bully cavaliers, 
We ride to church to-day, 

The man that hasn’t got a horse 
Must steal one straight away. 


Be reverent, men, remember 
This is a Gottes haus. 
Du, Conrad, cut along der aisle 
And schenck der whiskey aus. 
Hans Breitmann’s Ride to Church. 


ONCE upon a time, very far from England, there lived 
three men who loved each other so greatly that neither 
man nor woman could come between them. They were 
in no sense refined, nor to be admitted to the outer- 
door mats of decent folk, because they happened to be 
private soldiers in Her Majesty’s Army; and private 
soldiers of our service have small time for self-culture. 
Their duty is to keep themselves and their accoutre- 
ments specklessly clean, to refrain from getting drunk 
more often than is necessary, to obey their superiors, and 
to pray for a war. All these things my friends accom- 
plished; and of their own motion threw in some fighting- 
work for which the Army Regulations did not call. 
Their fate sent them to serve in India, which is not 
a golden country, though poets have sung otherwise. 
There men die with great swiftness, and those who live 


85 


86 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


suffer many and curious things. I do not think that my 
friends concerned themselves much with the social or 
political aspects of the East. They attended a not un- 
important war on the northern frontier, another one on 
our western boundary, and a third in Upper Burma. 
Then their regiment sat still to recruit, and the boundless 
monotony of cantonment life was their portion. They 
were drilled morning and evening on the same dusty 
parade-ground. They wandered up and down the same 
stretch of dusty white road, attended the same church 
and the same grog-shop, and slept in the same line- 
washed barn of a barrack for two long years. There was 
Mulvaney, the father in the craft, who had served with 
various regiments from Bermuda to Halifax, old in war, 
scarred, reckless, resourceful, and in his pious hours an 
unequalled soldier. ‘To him turned for help and comfort 
six and a half feet of slow-moving, heavy-footed York- 
shireman, born on the wolds, bred in the dales, and 
educated chiefly among the carriers’ carts at the back of 
York railway-station. His name was Learoyd, and his 
chief virtue an unmitigated patience which helped him 
to win fights. How Ortheris, a fox-terrier of a Cockney, 
ever came to be one of the trio, is a mystery which even 
to-day I cannot explain. ‘There was always three av us,’ 
Mulvaney used to say. ‘An’ by the grace av God, so 
long as our service lasts, three av us they’ll always be. 
*Tis betther so.’ 

They desired no companionship beyond their own, 
and it was evil for any man of the regiment who at- 
tempted dispute with them. Physical argument was 
out of the question as regarded Mulvaney and the York- 
shireman; and assault on Ortheris meant a combined 
attack from these twain—a business which no five men 
were anxious to have on their hands. Therefore they 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 87 


flourished, sharing their drinks, their tobacco, and their 
money; good luck and evil; battle and the chances of 
death; life and the chances of happiness from Calicut in 
southern, to Peshawur in northern India. 

Through no merit of my own it was my good fortune 
to be in a measure admitted to their friendship—frankly 
by Mulvaney from the beginning, sullenly and with re- 
luctance by Learoyd, and suspiciously by Ortheris, who 
held to it that no man not in the Army could fraternise 
with ared-coat. ‘Like to like,’ saidhe. ‘I’ma bloomin’ 
sodger—he’s a bloomin’ civilian. ’Tain’t natural— 
that’s all.’ 

But that was not all. They thawed progressively, 
and in the thawing told me more of their lives and ad- 
ventures than I am ever likely to write. 

Omitting all else, this tale begins with the Lamentable 
Thirst that was at the beginning of First Causes. Never 
was such a thirst—Mulvaney told me so. They kicked 
against their compulsory virtue, but the attempt was 
only successful in the case of Ortheris. He, whose 
talents were many, went forth into the highways and 
stole a dog from a ‘civilian’—vdelicet, some one, he knew 
not who, not in the Army. Now that civilian was 
but newly connected by marriage with the colonel of the 
regiment, and outcry was made from quarters least 
anticipated by Ortheris, and, in the end, he was forced, 
lest a worse thing should happen, to dispose at ridicu- 
lously unremunerative rates of as promising a small 
terrier as ever graced one end of a leading string. The 
purchase-money was barely sufficient for one small out- 
break which led him to the guard-room. He escaped, 
however, with nothing worse than a severe reprimand, 
and a few hours of punishment drill. Not for nothing 
had he acquired the reputation of being ‘the best soldier 


88 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


of his inches’ in the regiment. Mulvaney had taught 
personal cleanliness and efficiency as the first articles 
of his companions’ creed. ‘A dhirty man,’ he was used 
to say, in the speech of his kind, ‘goes to Clink for a 
weakness in the knees, an’ is coort-martialled for a pair 
av socks missin’; but a clane man, such as is an orna- 
ment to his service—a man whose buttons are gold, 
whose coat is wax upon him, an’ whose ’coutrements are 
widout a speck—that man may, spakin’ in reason, do 
fwhat he likes an’ dhrink from day to divil. That’s the 
pride av bein’ dacint.’ 

We sat together, upon a day, in the shade of a ravine 
far from the barracks, where a watercourse used to run 
in rainy weather. Behind us was the scrub jungle, in 
which jackals, peacocks, the gray wolves of the North- 
Western Provinces, and occasionally a tiger estrayed 
from Central India, were supposed to dwell. In front 
lay the cantonment, glaring white under a glaring sun; 
and on either side ran the broad road that led to Delhi. 

It was the scrub that suggested to my mind the 
wisdom of Mulvaney taking a day’s leave and going upon 
a shooting-tour. The peacock is a holy bird throughout 
India, and he who slays one is in danger of being mobbed 
by the nearest villagers; but on the last occasion that 
Mulvaney had gone forth, he had contrived, without in 
the least offending local religious susceptibilities, to return 
with six beautiful peacock skins which he sold to profit. 
It seemed just possible then—— 

‘But fwhat manner av use is ut to me goin’ out 
widout a dhrink? The ground’s powdher-dhry under- 
foot, an’ ut gets unto the throat fit to kill,’ wailed 
Mulvaney, looking at me reproachfully. ‘An’ a peacock 
is not a bird you can catch the tail av onless ye run. 
Can a man run on wather—an’ jungle-wather too?’ 





THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 89 


Ortheris had considered the question in all its bearings. 
He spoke, chewing his pipe-stem meditatively the while: 


‘Go forth, return in glory, 

To Clusium’s royal ’ome: 

An’ round these bloomin’ temples ’ang 
The bloomin’ shields o’ Rome. 


You better go. You ain’t like to shoot yourself—not 
while there’s a chanst of liquor. Mean’ Learoyd ’ll stay 
at ’ome an’ keep shop—’case 0’ anythin’ turnin’ up. But 
you go out with a gas-pipe gun an’ ketch the little pea- 
cockses or somethin’. You kin get one day’s leave easy 
as winkin’. Go along an’ get it, an’ get peacockses or 
somethin’.’ 

‘Jock,’ said Mulvaney, turning to Learoyd, who was half 
asleep under the shadow of the bank. He roused slowly. 

‘Sitha, Mulvaaney, go,’ said he. 

And Mulvaney went; cursing his allies with Irish 
fluency and barrack-room point. 

‘Take note,’ said he, when he had won his holiday, 
and appeared dressed in his roughest clothes with the 
only other regimental fowling-piece in his hand. ‘Take 
note, Jock, an’ you Orth’ris, I am goin’ in the face av 
my own will—all for to please you. I misdoubt any- 
thin’ will come av permiscuous huntin’ afther peacockses 
in a desolit lan’; an’ I know that I will lie down an’ die 
wid thirrrst. Me catch peacockses for you, ye lazy scutts 
—an’ be sacrificed by the peasanthry—Ugh!’ 

He waved a huge paw and went away. 

At twilight, long before the appointed hour, he re- 
turned empty-handed, much begrimed with dirt. 

‘Peacockses?’ queried Ortheris from the safe rest 
of a barrack-room table whereon he was smoking cross- 
legged, Learoyd fast asleep on a bench. 


g0 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Jock,’ said Mulvaney without answering, as he stirred 
up the sleeper. ‘Jock, can ye fight? Will ye fight?’ 

Very slowly the meaning of the words communicated 
itself to the half-roused man. He understood—and 
again—what might these things mean? Mulvaney was 
shaking him savagely. Meantime the men in the room 
howled with delight. ‘There was war in the confederacy 
at last—war and the breaking of bonds. 

Barrack-room etiquette is stringent. On the direct 
challenge must follow the direct reply. This is more 
binding than the ties of tried friendship. Once again 
Mulvaney repeated the question. Learoyd answered by 
the only means in his power, and so swiftly that the 
Irishman had barely time to avoid the blow. The 
laughter around increased. Learoyd looked bewilderedly 
at his friend—himself as greatly bewildered. Ortheris 
dropped from the table because his world was falling. 

‘Come outside,’ said Mulvaney, and as the occupants 
of the barrack-room prepared joyously to follow, he 
turned and said furiously, ‘There will be no fight this 
night—onless any wan av you is wishful to assist. The 
man that does, follows on.’ 

No man moved. ‘The three passed out into the moon- 
light, Learoyd fumbling with the buttons of his coat. 
The parade-ground was deserted except for the scurrying 
jackals. Mulvaney’s impetuous rush carried his com- 
panions far into the open ere Learoyd attempted to turn 
round and continue the discussion. 

‘Be still now. ’Twas my fault for beginnin’ things 
in the middle av an end, Jock. JI should ha’ comminst 
wid an explanation; but Jock, dear, on your sowl are 
ye fit, think you, for the finest fight that iver was— 
betther than fightin’ me? Considher before ye answer.’ 

More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round two o1 


“THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY or 


three times, felt an arm, kicked tentatively, and an- 
swered, ‘Ah’m fit.’ He was accustomed to fight blindly 
at the bidding of the superior mind. 

They sat them down, the men looking on from afar, 
and Mulvaney untangled himself in mighty words. 

‘Followin’ your fools’ scheme I wint out into the 
thrackless desert beyond the barricks. An’ there I met 
a pious Hindu dhriving a bullock-kyart. I tuk ut for 
granted he wud be delighted for to convoy me a piece, 
an’ I jumped in . 

‘You long, lazy, black-haired swine,’ drawled Ortheris, 
who would have done the same thing under similar 
circumstances. 

‘Twas the height av policy. That naygur-man dhruv 
miles an’ miles—as far as the new railway line they’re 
buildin’ now back av the Tavi river. “’Tis a kyart for 
dhirt only,” says he now an’ again timoreously, to get me 
out av ut. ‘‘Dhirt I am,” sez I, ‘an’ the dhryest that 
you iver kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an glory be wid 
you.” At that I wint to slape, an’ took no heed till he 
pulled up on the embankmint av the line where the 
coolies were pilin’ mud. There was a matther av two 
thousand coolies on that lme—you remimber that. 
Prisintly a bell rang, an’ they throops off to a big pay- 
shed. ‘“‘Where’s the white man in charge?” sez I to my 
kyart-dhriver. “In the shed,” sez he, “engaged on a 
riffie.’—‘A fwhat?” sez I. ‘‘Riffle,’ sez he. ‘You 
take ticket. He take money. You get nothin’.”’— 
“Oho!” sez I, ‘‘that’s fwhat the shuperior an’ cultivated 
man calls a raffle, me misbeguided child av darkness an’ 
sin. Lead on to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief 
*tis doin’ so far away from uts home—which is the charity- 
bazaar at Christmas, an’ the colonel’s wife grinnin’ 
behind the tea-table—is more than I know.”’ Wid that 





02 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


I wint to the shed an’ found ’twas pay-day among the 
coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a big, fine, 
red buck av a man—sivun fut high, four fut wide, an’ 
three fut thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He 
was payin’ the coolies fair an’ easy, but he wud ask each 
man if he wud raffle that month, an’ each man sez, 
“Yes,” av course. Thin he wud deduct from their 
wages accordin’. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould 
cigar-box full av gun-wads an’ scatthered ut among the 
coolies. They did not take much joy av that per- 
formince, an’ small wondher. A man close to me picks 
up a black gun-wad an’ sings out, “‘I have ut.”—‘‘ Good 
may ut do you,” sez I. The coolie wint forward to this 
big, fine, red man, who threw a cloth off av the most 
sumpshus, jooled, enamelled an’ variously bedivilled 
sedan-chair J iver saw.’ 

‘Sedan-chair! Put your ’ead in a bag. That was a 
palanquin. Don’t yer know a palanquin when you see 
it?’ said Ortheris with great scorn. 

‘T chuse to call ut sedan-chair, an’ chair ut shall be, 
little man,’ continued the Irishman. ‘’Twas a most 
amazin’ chair—all lined wid pink silk an’ fitted wid red 
silk curtains. ‘‘Here ut is,” sez the red man. ‘Here 
ut is,” sez the coolie, an’ he grinned weakly-ways. “‘Is 
ut any use to your” sez the red man. ‘‘No,” sez the 
coolie; “‘I’d like to make a presint av ut to you.” —“I am 
graciously pleased to accept that same,” sez the red man; 
an’ at that all the coolies cried aloud in fwhat was mint 
for cheerful notes, an’ wint back to their diggin’, lavin’ 
me alone in the shed. ‘The red man saw me, an’ his face 
grew blue on his big, fat neck. ‘“‘Fwhat d’you want 
here?” sez he. ‘‘Standin’-room an’ no more,” sez I, 
‘fonless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an’ that’s manners, 
ye rafflin’ rufhan,”’ for ] was not goin’ to have the Service 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 03 


throd upon. ‘Out of this,” sez he. “I’m in charge av 
this section av construction.”’—‘‘I’m in charge av 
mesilf,”’ sez I, ‘an’ it’s like I will stay a while. D’ye 
raffle much in these parts?’—‘‘Fwhat’s that to you?” 
sez he. ‘“‘Nothin’,” sez I, “but a great dale to you, for 
begad I’m thinkin’ you get the full half av your revenue 
from that sedan-chair. Is ut always raffled so?” I sez, 
an’ wid that I wint to a coolie to ask questions. Bhoys, 
that man’s name is Dearsley, an’ he’s been rafflin’ that 
ould sedan-chair monthly this matther av nine months. 
Ivry coolie on the section takes a ticket—or he gives ’em 
the go—wanst a month on pay-day. Ivry coolie that 
wins ut gives ut back to him, for ’tis too big to carry 
away, an’ he’d sack the man that thried to sell ut. That 
Dearsley has been makin’ the rowlin’ wealth av Roshus 
by nefarious rafflin’. Think av the burnin’ shame to the 
sufferin’ coolie-man that the army in Injia are bound to 
protect an’ nourish in their bosoms! Two thousand 
coolies defrauded wanst a month!’ 

‘Dom t’ coolies. Has’t gotten t’ cheer, man?’ said 
Learoyd. 

‘Hould on. Havin’ onearthed this amazin’ an’ stupen- 
jus fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council 
av war; he thryin’ all the time to sejuce me into a 
fight with opprobrious language. That sedan-chair 
niver belonged by right to any foreman av coolies. ’Tis 
a king’s chair or a quane’s. There’s gold on ut an’ silk 
an’ all manner av trapesemints. Bhoys, ’tis not for me 
to countenance any sort av wrong-doin’—me bein’ the 
ould man—but——anyway he has had ut nine months, 
an’ he dare not make throuble av ut was taken from him. 
Five miles away, or ut may be six 

There was a long pause, and the jackals howled mer- 
rily. Learoyd bared one arm, and contemplated it in 





04 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the moonlight. Then he nodded partly to himself and 
partly to his friends. Ortheris wriggled with suppressed 
emotion. 

‘I thought ye wud see the reasonableness av ut,’ said 
Mulvaney. ‘I made bould to say as much to the man 
before. He was for a direct front attack—fut, horse, an’ 
guns an’ all for nothin’, seein’ that I had no thrans- 
port to convey the machine away. “I will not argue 
wid you,” sez I, “‘this day, but subsequintly, Mister 
Dearsley, me rafflin’ jool, we talk ut out lengthways. 
’Tis no good policy to swindle the naygur av his hard- 
- earned emolumints, an’ by presint informashin’”— 
*twas the kyart man that tould me—‘‘ye’ve been per- 
pethrating that same for nine months. But I’m a just 
man,” sez I, ‘‘an’ overlookin’ the presumpshin that 
yondher settee wid the gilt top was not come by honust’’ 
—at that he turned sky-green, so I knew things was more 
thrue than tellable—‘‘not come by honust, ’m willin’ 
to compound the felony for this month’s winnin’s.”’’ 

‘Ah! Ho!’ from Learoyd and Ortheris. 

‘That man Dearsley’s rushin’ on his fate,’ continued 
Mulvaney, solemnly wagging his head. ‘All Hell had no 
name bad enough for me that tide. Faith, he called me 
a robber! Me! that was savin’ him from continuin’ in 
his evil ways widout a remonstrince—an’ to a man av 
conscience a remonstrince may change the chune av his 
life. “’Tis not for me to argue,” sez I, “‘fwhatever ye 
are, Mister Dearsley, but, by my hand, I’ll take away the 
temptation for you that lies in that sedan-chair.’’—‘‘ You 
will have to fight me for ut,” sez he, “for well I know you 
will never dare make report to any one.” —‘‘ Fight I will,” 
sez I, “but not this day, for I’m rejuced for want av 
nourishment.’”’—‘‘ Ye’re an ould bould hand,” sez he, 
sizin’ me up an’ down; “‘an’ a jool av a fight we will have. 





THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 05 


Eat now an’ dhrink, an’ go your way.”” Wid that he gave 
me some hump an’ whisky—good whisky—an’ we talked 
av this an’ that the while. ‘It goes hard on me now,” 
sez I, wipin’ my mouth, “to confiscate that piece av 
furniture, but justice is justice.” —“ Ye’ve not got ut yet,” 
sez he; “‘there’s the fight between.”—“ There is,” sez I, 
‘fan’ a good fight. Ye shall have the pick av the best 
quality In my rigimint for the dinner you have given this 
day.” ‘Thin I came hot-foot to you two. Hould your 
tongue, the both. ’Tis this way. ‘To-morrow we three 
will go there an’ he shall have his pick betune me an’ 
Jock. Jock’s a deceivin’ fighter, for he is all fat to the 
eye, an’ he moves slow. Now, I’m all beef to the look, 
an’ I move quick. By my reckonin’ the Dearsley man 
won’t take me; so me an’ Orth’ris ’ll see fair play. Jock, 
I tell you, ’twill be big fightin’—whipped, wid the cream 
above the jam. Afther the business ’twill take a good 
three av us—Jock ‘ll be very hurt—to haul away that 
sedan-chair.’ 

‘Palanquin.’ This from Ortheris. 

‘Fwhatever ut is, we must have ut. ’Tis the only 
sellin’ piece av property widin reach that we can get so 
cheap. An’ fwhat’s a fight afther all? He has robbed 
the naygur-man, dishonust. We rob him honust for the 
sake av the whisky he gave me.’ 

‘But wot’ll we do with the bloomin’ article when we’ve 
got it? Them palanquins are as big as ’ouses, an’ 
uncommon ’ard to sell, as McCleary said when ye stole 
the sentry-box from the Curragh.’ 

‘Who’s goin’ to do t’ fightin’?’ said Learoyd, and 
Ortheris subsided. The three returned to barracks with- 
out a word. Mulvaney’s last argument clinched the 
matter. This palanquin was property, vendible, and 
to be attained in the simplest and least embarrassing 








96 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


fashion. It would eventually become beer. Great was 
Mulvaney. 

Next afternoon a procession of three formed itself and 
disappeared into the scrub in the direction of the new 
railway line. Learoyd alone was without care, for Mul- 
vaney dived darkly into the future, and little Ortheris 
feared the unknown. What befell at that interview in 
the lonely pay-shed by the side of the half-built embank- 
ment, only a few hundred coolies know, and their tale is 
a confusing one, running thus— 

“We were at work. Three men in red coats came. 
They saw the Sahib—Dearsley Sahib. They made 
oration; and noticeably the small man among the red- 
coats. Dearsley Sahib also made oration, and used 
many very strong words. Upon this talk they departed 
together to an open space, and there the fat man in the 
red coat fought with Dearsley Sahib after the custom of 
white men—with his hands, making no noise, and never 
at all pulling Dearsley Sahib’s hair. Such of us as were 
not afraid beheld these things for just so long a time as a 
man needs to cook the mid-day meal. The small man 
in the red coat had possessed himself of Dearsley Sahib’s 
watch. No, he did not steal that watch. He held it in 
his hand, and at certain seasons made outcry, and the 
twain ceased their combat, which was like the combat of 
young bulls in spring. Both men were soon all red, but 
Dearsley Sahib was much more red than the other. 
Seeing this, and fearing for his life—because we greatly 
loved him—some fifty of us made shift to rush upon the 
red-coats. Buta certain man—very black as to the hair, 
and in no way to be confused with the small man, or the 
fat man who fought—that man, we affirm, ran upon us, 
and of us he embraced some ten or fifty in both arms, 
and beat our heads together, so that our livers turned to 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 97 


water, and we ran away. It is not good to interfere in 
the fightings of white men. After that Dearsley Sahib 
fell and did not rise, these men jumped upon his stomach 
and despoiled him of all his money, and attempted to 
fire the pay-shed, and departed. Is it true that Dearsley 
Sahib makes no complaint of these latter things having 
been done? We were senseless with fear, and do not 
at allremember. There was no palanquin near the pay- 
shed. What do we know about palanquins? Is it true 
that Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place, on 
account of his sickness, for ten days? ‘This is the fault 
of those bad men in the red coats, who should be severely 
punished; for Dearsley Sahib is both our father and 
mother, and we love him much. Yet, if Dearsley Sahib 
does not return to this place at all, we will speak the 
truth. ‘There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which 
we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our monthly wage. 
On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make 
obeisance to him before the palanquin. What could we 
do? We were poor men. He took a full half of our 
wages. Will the Government repay us those moneys? 
Those three men in red coats bore the palanquin upon 
their shoulders and departed. All the money that 
Dearsley Sahib had taken from us was in the cushions of 
that palanquin. Therefore they stole it. Thousands of 
rupees were there—all our money. It was our bank-box, 
to fill which we cheerfully contributed to Dearsley Sahib 
three-sevenths of our monthly wage. Why does the 
white man look upon us with the eye of disfavour? 
Before God, there was a palanquin, and now there is no 
palanquin; and if they send the police here to make in- 
quisition, we can only say that there never has been any 
palanquin. Why should a palanquin be near these 
works? We ate poor men, and we know nothing.’ 


98 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Such is the simplest version of the simplest story 
connected with the descent upon Dearsley. From the 
lips of the coolies I received it. Dearsley himself was in 
no condition to say anything, and Mulvaney preserved 
a massive silence, broken only by the occasional licking 
of the lips. He had seen a fight so gorgeous that even 
his power of speech was taken from him. [I respected 
that reserve until, three days after the affair, I discovered 
in a disused stable in my quarters a palanquin of unchas- 
tened splendour—evidently in past days the litter of a 
queen. The pole whereby it swung between the shoulders 
of the bearers was rich with the painted papier-maché 
of Cashmere. The shoulder-pads were of yellow silk. 
The panels of the litter itself were ablaze with the loves 
of all the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon— 
lacquer on cedar. The cedar sliding doors were fitted 
with hasps of translucent Jaipur enamel and ran in 
grooves shod with silver. ‘The cushions were of brocaded 
Delhi silk, and the curtains which once hid any glimpse 
of the beauty of the king’s palace were stiff with gold. 
Closer investigation showed that the entire fabric was 
everywhere rubbed and discoloured by time and wear; 
but even thus it was sufficiently gorgeous to deserve 
housing on the threshold of a royal zenana. I found no 
fault with.it, except that it was in my stable. Then, 
trying to lift it by the silver-shod shoulder-pole, I laughed. 
The road from Dearsley’s pay-shed to the cantonment 
was anarrow and uneven one, and, traversed by three very 
inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was sorely 
battered about the head, must have been a path of tor- 
ment. Still I did not quite recognise the right of the three 
musketeers to turn me into a ‘fence’ for stolen property. 

‘I’m askin’ you to warehouse ut,’ said Mulvaney when 
he was brought to consider the question. ‘There’s ne 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 99 


steal in ut. Dearsley tould us we cud have ut if we 
fought. Jock fought—an’, oh, sorr, when the throuble 
was at uts finest an’ Jock was bleedin’ like a stuck pig, 
an’ little Orth’ris was shquealin’ on one leg chewin’ big 
bites out av Dearsley’s watch, I wud ha’ given my place 
at the fight to have had you see wan round. He tuk 
Jock, as I suspicioned he would, an’ Jock was deceptive. 
Nine roun’s they were even matched, an’ at the tenth 
About that palanquin now. There’s not the least 
throuble in the world, or we wud not ha’ brought ut 
here. You will ondherstand that the Queen—God bless 
her!—does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape ele- 
phints an’ palanquins an’ sich in barricks. Afther we 
had dhragged ut down from Dearsley’s through that 
cruel scrub that near broke Orth’ris’s heart, we set ut in 
the ravine for a night; an’ a thief av a porcupine an’ a 
civet-cat av a Jackal roosted in ut, as well we knew in the 
mornin’. I put ut to you, sorr, is an elegint palanquin, 
fit for the princess, the natural abidin’ place av all the 
vermin in cantonmints? We brought ut to you, afther 
dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not let your 
conscience prick. Think av the rejoicin’ men in the 
pay-shed yonder—lookin’ at Dearsley wid his head 
tied up in a towel—an’ well knowin’ that they can dhraw 
their pay ivry month widout stoppages for riffles. In- 
directly, sorr, you have rescued from an onprincipled 
son av a night-hawk the peasanthry av a numerous vil- 
lage. An’ besides, will I let that sedan-chair rot on our 
hands? Not I. ’Tis not every day a piece av pure 
joolry comes into the market. There’s not a king widin 
these forty miles’—he waved his hand round the dusty 
horizon—‘not a king wud not be glad to buy ut. Some 
day meself, whin I have leisure, I’ll take ut up along the 
road an’ dishpose av ut.’ 





roo LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘How?’ said I, for I knew the man was capable of 
anything. 

‘Get into ut, av coorse, and keep wan eye open 
through the curtains. Whin I see a likely man av the 
native persuasion, I will descind blushin’ from my canopy 
and say, ‘“‘Buy a palanquin, ye black scutt?” I will 
have to hire four men to carry me first, though; and that’s 
impossible till next pay-day.’ 

Curiously enough, Learoyd, who had fought for the 
prize, and in the winning secured the highest pleasure 
life had to offer him, was altogether disposed to under- 
value it, while Ortheris openly said it would be better to 
break the thing up. Dearsley, he argued, might be a 
many-sided man, capable, despite his magnificent fighting 
qualities, of setting in motion the machinery of the civil 
law—a thing much abhorred by the soldier. Under any 
circumstances their fun had come and passed; the next 
pay-day was close at hand, when there would be beer for 
all. Wherefore longer conserve the painted palanquin? 

‘A first-class rifle-shot an’ a good little man av your 
inches you are,’ said Mulvaney. ‘But you niver had 
a head worth a soft-boiled egg. “Tis me has to lie awake 
av nights schamin’ an’ plottin’ for the three av us. 
Orth’ris, me son, ’tis no matther av a few gallons av beer 
—no, nor twenty gallons—but tubs an’ vats an’ firkins 
in that sedan-chair. Who ut was, an’ what ut was, an’ 
how ut got there, we do not know; but I know in my 
bones that you an’ me an’ Jock wid his sprained thumb 
will get a fortune thereby. Lave me alone, an’ let me 
think.’ 

Meantime the palanquin stayed in my stall, the key 
of which was in Mulvaney’s hands. 

Pay-day came, and with it heer. It was not in experi- 
ence to hope that Muivaney, dried by four weeks’ 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY . tor 


drought, would avoid excess. Next morning he and the 
palanquin had disappeared. He had taken the precau- 
tion of getting three days’ leave ‘to see a friend on the 
railway,’ and the colonel, well knowing that the seasonal 
outburst was near, and hoping it would spend its force 
beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, cheerfully gave him 
all he demanded. At this point Mulvaney’s history, as 
recorded in the mess-room, stopped. 

Ortheris carried it not much further. ‘No, ’e wasn’t 
drunk,’ said the little man loyally, ‘the liquor was no 
more than feelin’ its way round inside of *im; but ’e 
went an’ filled that ’ole bloomin’ palanquin with bottles 
‘fore ’e went off. ’E’s gone an’ ’ired six men to carry 
’im, an’ I ’ad to ’elp ’im into ’is nupshal couch, ’cause ’e 
vouldn’t ’earreason. ’E’sgoneoffin’isshirt an’ trousies, 
swearin’ tremenjus—gone down the road in the palanquin, 
wavin’ ’is legs out 0’ windy.’ 

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but where?’ 

‘Now you arx me a question. ’E said ’e was goin’ 
to sell that palanquin, but from observations what 
happened when I was stuffin’ ’im through the door, I 
fancy ’e’s gone to the new embankment to mock at 
Dearsley. “Soon as Jock’s off duty I’m goin’ there to 
see if ’e’s safe—not Mulvaney, but t’other man. My 
saints, but I pity ’im as ’elps Terence out o’ the palanquin 
when ’e’s once fair drunk!’ 

‘He'll come back without harm,’ I said. 

‘’Corse ’e will. On’y question is, what’ll ’e be doin’ 
ontheroad? Killing Dearsley, likeasnot. ’E shouldn’t 
’a gone without Jock or me.’ 

Reinforced by Learoyd, Ortheris sought the foreman 
of the coolie-gang. Dearsley’s head was still embellished 
with towels. Mulvaney, drunk or sober, would have 
struck no man in that condition, and Dearsley indig- 


r02 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


nantly denied that he would have taken advantage of the 
intoxicated brave. 

‘I had my pick o’ you two,’ he explained to Learoyd, 
‘and you got my palangquin—not before ’d made my 
profit onit. Why’d I do harm when everything’s settled? 
Your man did come here—drunk as Davy’s sow on a 
frosty night—came a-purpose to mock me—stuck his 
head out of the door an’ called me a crucified hodman. 
I made him drunker, an’ sent him along. But I never 
touched him.’ 

To these things, Learoyd, slow to perceive the evi- 
dences of sincerity, answered only, ‘If owt comes to Mul- 
vaaney ‘long o’ you, I'll gripple you, clouts or no clouts 
on your ugly head, an’ll draw t’ throat twistyways, man. 
See there now.’ 

The embassy removed itself, and Dearsley, the bat- 
tered, laughed alone over his supper that evening. 

Three days passed—a fourth and a fifth. The week 
drew to a close and Mulvaney did not return. He, his 
royal palanquin, and his six attendants, had vanished 
into atr. A very large and very tipsy soldier, his feet 
sticking out of the htter of a reigning princess, is not a 
thing to travel along the ways without comment. Yet 
no man of all the country round had seen any such won- 
der. He was, and he was not; and Learoyd suggested 
the immediate smashment of Dearsley as a sacrifice to his 
ghost. Ortheris msisted that all was well, and m the 
light of past experience his hopes seemed reasonable. 

‘When Mulvaney goes up the road,’ said he, ‘’e’s 
like to go a very long ways up, specially when ’e’s so blue 
drunk as ’e is now. But what gits me is ’is not bein’ 
’eard of pulhn’ wool off the niggers somewheres about. 
That don’t look good. ‘The drink must ha’ died out in 
"mm by this, unless ’e’s broke a bank, an’ then—Why 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 103. 


don’t ’e come back? ’E didn’t ought to ha’ gone off 
without us.’ 

Even Ortheris’s heart sank at the end of the seventh 
day, for half the regiment were out scouring the country- 
side, and Learoyd had been forced to fight two men who 
hinted openly that Mulvaney had deserted. To do him 
justice, the colonel laughed at the notion, even when it 
was put forward by his much-trusted adjutant. 

‘Mulvaney would as soon think of deserting as you 
would,’ said he. ‘No; he’s either fallen into a mischief 
among the villagers—and yet that isn’t likely, for he’d 
blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on 
urgent private affairs—some stupendous devilment that 
we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of 
the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have 
to give him twenty-eight days’ confinement at least for 
being absent without leave, just when I most want him to 
lick the new batch of recruits into shape. I never knew 
a man who could put a polish on young soldiers as 
quickly as Mulvaney can. How does he do it?’ 

‘With blarney and the buckle-end of a belt, sir,’ said 
the adjutant. ‘He is worth a couple of non-commis- 
sioned officers when we are dealing with an Irish draft, 
and the London lads seem to adore him. The worst of 
it is that if he goes to the cells the other two are neither 
to hold nor to bind till he comes out again. I believe 
Ortheris preaches mutiny on those occasions, and I know 
that the mere presence of Learoyd mourning for Mul- 
vaney kills all the cheerfulness of his room. The ser- 
geants tell me that he allows no man to laugh when he 
feels unhappy. ‘They are a queer gang.’ 

‘For all that, I wish we had a few more of them. I 
like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, 
shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the 


104 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue. 
They don’t seem to have backbone enough to do any- 
thing but play cards and prowl round the married 
quarters. I believe I’d forgive that old villain on 
the spot if he turned up with any sort of explanation 
that I could in decency accept.’ 

‘Not likely to be much difficulty about that, sir,’ 
said the adjutant. ‘Mulvaney’s explanations are only 
one degree less wonderful than his performances. They 
say that when he was in the Black Tyrone, before he 
came to us, he was discovered on the banks of the Liffey 
trying to sell his colonel’s charger to a Donegal dealer 
as a perfect lady’s hack. Shackbolt commanded the 
Tyrone then.’ 

‘Shackbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought 
of his ramping war-horses answering to that description. 
He used to buy unbacked devils, and tame them on 
some pet theory of starvation. What did Mulvaney 
say?’ 

‘That he was a member of the Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Animals, anxious to “sell the poor 
baste where he would get something to fill out his dim- 
ples.’ Shackbolt laughed, but I fancy that was why 
Mulvaney exchanged to ours.’ 

‘I wish he were back,’ said the colonel; ‘for I like 
him and believe he likes me.’ 

That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris, 
and I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine. 
All the dogs attended, but even their clamour—and 
they began to discuss the shortcomings of porcupines 
before they left cantonments—could not take us out 
of ourselves. A large, low moon turned the tops of 
the plume-grass to silver, and the stunted camelthorn 
bushes and sour tamarisks into the likenesses of trooping 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 10g 


devils. The smell of the sun had not left the earth, 
and little aimless winds blowing across the rose-gardens 
to the southward brought the scent of dried roses and 
water. Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily 
disposed to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed 
to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earth, and looked 
across the scrub seamed with cattle paths, white with 
the long grass, and dotted with spots of level pond- 
bottom, where the snipe would gather in winter. 

‘This,’ said Ortheris, with a sigh, as he took in the 
unkempt desolation of it all, ‘this is sanguinary. This 
is unusually sanguinary. Sort o’ mad country. Likea 
grate when the fire’s put out by the sun.’ He shaded 
his eyes against the moonlight. ‘An’ there’s a loony 
dancin’ in the middle of it all. Quite right. Id dance 
too if I wasn’t so downheart.’ 

There pranced a Portent in the face of the moon—a 
huge and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its 
wings from afar. It had risen out of the earth; it was 
coming towards us, and its outline was never twice the 
same. The toga, table-cloth, or dressing-gown, what- 
ever the creature wore, took a hundred shapes. Once it 
stopped on a neighbouring mound and flung all its legs 
and arms to the winds. 

‘My, but that scarecrow ’as got ’em bad!’ said Ortheris. 
‘Seems like if ’e comes any furder we'll ’ave to argify 
with ’im.’ 

Learoyd raised himself from the dirt as a bull clears 
his flanks of the wallow. And as a bull bellows, so he, 
after a short minute at gaze, gave tongue to the stars. 

*MULVAANEY! MutvaAney! A-hoo!’ 

Oh then it was that we yelled, and the figure dipped 
into the hollow, till, with a crash of rending grass, the 
lost one strode up to the light of the fire and disappeared 


106 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs! Then Learoyd 
and Ortheris gave greeting, bass and falsetto together, 
both swallowing a lump in the throat. | 

“You damned fool!’ said they, and severally pounded 
him with their fists. 

‘Go easy!’ he answered; wrapping a huge arm round 
each. ‘I would have you to know that I am a god, to be 
treated as such—tho’, by my faith, I fancy I’ve got to go 
to the guard-room just like a privit soldier.’ 

The latter part of the sentence destroyed the sus- 
picions raised by the former. Any one would have 
been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was 
hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were 
dropping off him. But he wore one wondrous garment 
—a gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heel—-of 
pale pink silk, wrought all over in cunningest needlework 
of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu 
gods. The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the 
light of the fire as he settled the folds round him. 

Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment 
while I was trying to remember where I had seen it 
before. Then he screamed, ‘What ’ave you done with 
the palanquin? You’re wearin’ the linin’.’ 

‘I am,’ said the Irishman, ‘an’ by the same token 
the *broidery is scrapin’ my hide off. I’ve lived in this 
sumpshus counterpane for four days. Meson, I begin to 
ondherstand why the naygur is no use. Widout me 
boots, an’ me trousies like an openwork stocking on a 
gyurl’s leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-man 
—all fearful an’ timoreous. Give me a pipe an’ I’ll tell 
on.’ 

He lit a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and 
rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter. 

‘Mulvaney,’ said Ortheris sternly, ‘ ’tain’t no time for 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 107 


laughin’. You’ve given Jock an’ me more trouble than 
you're worth. You ’ave been absent without leave an’ 
you'll go into cells for that; an’ you ’ave come back 
disgustin’ly dressed an’ most improper in the linin’ 0’ 
that bloomin’ palanquin. Instid of which you laugh. 
An’ we thought you was dead all the time.’ 

‘Bhoys,’ said the culprit, still shaking gently, ‘whin 
I’ve done my tale you may cry if you like, an’ little 
Orth’ris here can thrample my inside out. Ha’ done 
an’ listen. My performinces have been stupenjus: my 
luck has been the blessed luck av the British Army— 
an’ there’s no betther than that. I went out dhrunk 
an’ dhrinkin’ in the palanquin, and I have come back a 
pink god. Did any of you go to Dearslcy afther my time 
wasup? He was at the bottom of ut all.’ 

‘Ah said so,’ murmured Learoyd. ‘To-morrow ah’ll 
smash t’ face in upon his heead.’ 

‘Ye will not. Dearsley’s a jool av a man. Afther 
Ortheris had put me into the palanquin an’ the six 
bearer-men were gruntin’ down the road, I tuk thought 
to mock Dearsley for that fight. So I tould thim, ‘Go 
to the embankmint,” and there, bein’ most amazin’ full, I 
shtuck my head out av the concern an’ passed compli- 
ments wid Dearsley. I must ha’ miscalled him out- 
rageous, for whin I am that way the power av the tongue 
comes on me. I can bare remimber tellin’ him that his 
mouth opened endways like the mouth av a skate, which 
was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut; an’ I clear 
remimber his takin’ no manner nor matter av offence, 
but givin’ me a big dhrink of beer. Twas the beer did 
the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, step- 
pin’ on me right ear wid me left foot, an’ thin I slept like 
the dead. Wanst I half-roused, an’ begad the noise in 
my head was tremenjus—toarin’ and rattlin’ an’ poundin’ 


108 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


such as was quite new to me. “Mother av Mercy,” 
thinks I, “phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders 
whin I wake!” An’ wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep 
before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise 
was not dhrink, ’twas the rattle av a thrain!’ 

There followed an impressive pause. 

“Yes, he had put me on a thrain—put me, palanquin 
an’ all, an’ six black assassins av his own coolies that was 
in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast- 
thruck, and we were rowlin’ an’ bowlin’ along to Benares. 
Glory be that I did not wake up thin an’ introjuce mysilf 
to the coolies. As I was sayin’, I slept for the betther 
part av a day an’ a night. But remimber you, that that 
man Dearsley had packed me off on wan av his material- 
thrains to Benares, all for to make me overstay my leave 
an’ get me into the cells.’ 

The explanation was an eminently rational one, 
Benares lay at least ten hours by rail from the canton- 
ments, and nothing in the world could have saved 
Mulvaney from arrest as a deserter had he appeared there 
in the apparel of his orgies. Dearsley had not for- 
gotten to take revenge. Learoyd, drawing back a litle, 
began to place soft blows over selected portions of Mul- 
vaney’s body. His thoughts were away on the embank- 
ment, and they meditated evil for Dearsley. Mulvaney 
continued— 

‘Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down 
in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin’ an’ 
talkin’. But I knew well I was far from home. ‘There 
is a queer smell upon our cantonments—a smell av dried 
earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable- 
litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an’ bad water, 
an’ wanst somethin’ alive came an’ blew heavy with his 
muzzle at the chink av tl.e shutter. “It’s in a village 


THE INCAKNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY _ tcg 


IT am,” thinks I to mysilf, ‘‘an’ the parochial buffalo is 
investigatin’ the palanquin.”’ But anyways I had no 
desire to move. Only lie still whin you’re in foreign 
parts an’ the standin’ luck av the British Army will 
carry ye through. Thatisanepigram. I made ut. 

‘Thin a lot av whishperin’ divils surrounded the 
palanquin. ‘‘Take ut up,” sez wan man. ‘But who’ll 
nay us?” sez another. ‘‘The Maharanee’s minister, av 
foorse,”’ sez the man. ‘‘Oho!”’ sez I to mysilf, “I’m a 
quane in me own right, wid a minister to pay me ex- 
penses. I’ll be an emperor if I lie still long enough; but 
this is no village I’ve found.” I lay quiet, but I gummed 
me right eye to a crack av the shutters, an’ I saw that 
the whole street was crammed wid palanquins an’ horses, 
an’ a sprinklin’ av naked priests all yellow powder an’ 
tigers’ tails. But I may tell you, Orth’ris, an’ you, 
Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most 
imperial an’ magnificent. Now a palanquin means a 
native lady all the world over, except whin a soldier av 
the Quane happens to be takin’ a ride. ‘‘ Women an’ 
priests!” sez I. ‘Your father’s son is in the right pew 
this time, Terence. There will be proceedin’s.” Six 
black divils in pink muslin tuk up the palanquin, an’ oh! 
but the rowlin’ an’ the rockin’ made me sick. Thin we 
got fair jammed among the palanquins—not more than 
fifty av them—an’ we grated an’ bumped like Queens- 
town potato-smacks in a runnin’ tide. I cud hear the 
women gigglin’ and squirkin’ in their palanquins, but 
mine was the royal equipage. They made way for ut, 
an’, begad, the pink muslin men 0’ mine were howlin’, 
*“Room for the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun.” Do 
you know aught av the lady, sorr?’ 

‘Yes,’ said I. ‘She is a very estimable old queen 
of the Central Indian States, and they say she is fat. 


IIO LIFE’S HANDICAP 


How on earth could she go to Benares without all the 
city knowing her palanquin?’ 

‘*Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygur-man. 
They saw the palanquin lying loneful an’ forlornsome, 
an’ the beauty av ut, after Dearsley’s men had dhropped 
ut and gone away, an’ they gave ut the best name that 
occurred to thim. Quite right too. For aught we know 
the ould lady was thravellin’ incog—like me. I’m glad 
to hear she’s fat. I was no light weight mysilf, an’ my 
men were mortial anxious to dhrop me under a great big 
archway promiscuously ornamented wid the most im- 
proper carvin’s an’ cuttin’s I iver saw. Begad! they 
made me blush—like a—like a Maharanee.’ 

‘The temple of Prithi-Devi,’ I murmured, remember- 
ing the monstrous horrors of that sculptured archway at 
Benares. 

‘Pretty Devilskins, savin’ your presence, sorr! There 
was nothin’ pretty about ut, except me. *Twas all half 
dhark, an’ whin the coolies left they shut a big black 
gate behind av us, an’ half a company av fat yellow 
priests began pully-haulin’ the palanquins into a dharker 
place yet—a big stone hall full av pillars, an’ gods, an’ 
incense, an’ all manner av similar thruck. The gate dis- 
concerted me, for I perceived I wud have to go forward 
to get out, my retreat bein’ cut off. By the same token 
a good priest makes a bad palanquin-coolie. Begad! 
they nearly turned me inside out draggin’ the palanquin 
to the temple. Now the disposishin av the forces inside 
was this way. The Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun— 
that was me—lay by the favour av Providence on the 
far left flank behind the dhark av a pillar carved with 
elephints’ heads. The remainder av the palanquins was 
in a big half circle facing in to the biggest, fattest, an’ 
most amazin’ she-god that iver ] dreamed av. Her head 





THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 9 si11 


ran up into the black above us, an’ her feet stuck out 
in the light av a little fire av melted butter that a priest 
was feedin’ out av a butter-dish. Thin a man began to 
sing an’ play on somethin’ back in the dhark, an’ ’twas 
a queer song. Ut made my hair lift on the back av my 
neck. ‘Thin the doors av all the palanquins slid back, 
an’ the women bundled out. I saw what I'll niver see 
again. *~Iwas more glorious than thransformations at 
a pantomime, for they was in pink an’ blue an’ silver an’ 
red an’ grass green, wid di’monds an’ im’ralds an’ great 
red rubies all over thim. But that was the least part 
av the glory. O bhoys, they were more lovely than the 
like av any loveliness in hiven; ay, their little bare feet 
were betther than the white hands av a lord’s lady, an’ 
their mouths were like puckered roses, an’ their eyes were 
bigger an’ dharker than the eyes av any livin’ women I’ve 
seen. Ye may laugh, but I’m speakin’ truth. I niver 
saw the like, an’ niver I will again.’ 

‘Seeing that in all probability you were watching the 
wives and daughters of most of the kings of India, the 
chances are that you won’t,’ I said, for it was dawning 
on me that Mulvaney had stumbled upon a big Queens’ 
Praying at Benares. 

‘I niver will,’ he said mournfully. ‘That sight 
doesn’t come twist to any man. It made me ashamed 
to watch. A fat priest knocked at my door. I didn’t 
think he’d have the insolince to disturb the Maharanee 
av Gokral-Seetarun, so I lay still. “The old cow’s 
asleep,” sez he to another. ‘Let her be,” sez that. 
“Twill be long before she has a calf!” I might ha’ 
known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in 
Injia—an’ for matter o’ that in England too—is childher. 
That made me more sorry I’d come, me bein’, as you well 
know, a childless man.’ 


112 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


He was silent for a moment, thinking of his little son, 
dead many years ago. 

‘They prayed, an’ the butter-fires blazed up an’ the 
incense turned everything blue, an’ between that an’ the 
fires the women looked as tho’ they were all ablaze an’ 
twinklin’. ‘They took hold av the she-god’s knees, they 
cried out an’ they threw themselves about, an’ that 
world-without-end-amen music was dhrivin’ thim mad. 
Mother av Hiven! how they cried, an’ the ould she-god 
grinnin’ above thim all so scornful! The dhrink was 
dyin’ out in me fast, an’ I was thinkin’ harder than the 
thoughts wud go through my head—thinkin’ how to get 
out, an’ all manner of nonsense as well. The women 
were rockin’ in rows, their di’mond belts clickin’, an’ the 
tears runnin’ out betune their hands, an’ the lights were 
goin’ lower an’ dharker. Thin there was a blaze like 
lightnin’ from the roof, an’ that showed me the inside 
av the palanquin, an’ at the end where my foot was, 
stood the livin’ spit an’ image o’ mysilf worked on the 
linin’. This man here, ut was.’ 

He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand 
under one, and thrust into the firelight a foot-long em- 
broidered presentment of the great god Krishna, play- 
ing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring eye, and 
the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-off 
resemblance to Mulvaney. 

‘The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame 
came to me thin. I believe I was mad too. I slid the 
off-shutter open an’ rowled out into the dhark behind 
the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my 
knees, slipped off my boots an’ tuk a general hould av 
all the pink linin’ av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped 
out like a woman’s dhriss whin you tread on ut at a 
sergeants’ ball, an’ a bottle came with ut. I tuk the 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 11g 


bottle an’ the next minut I was out av the dhark av 
the pillar, the pink linin’ wrapped round me most grace- 
ful, the music thunderin’ like kettledrums, an’ a could 
draft blowin’ round my bare legs. By this hand that 
did ut, I was Khrishna tootlin’ on the flute—the god 
that the rig’mental chaplain talks about. A sweet sight 
I must ha’ looked. I knew my eyes were big, and my 
face was wax-white, an’ at the worst I must ha’ looked 
like a ghost. But they took me for the livin’ god. The 
music stopped, and the women were dead dumb an’ I 
crooked my legs like a shepherd on a china basin, an’ I 
did the ghost-waggle with my feet as I had done ut at the 
rig’mental theatre many times, an’ I slid acrost the width 
av that temple in front av the she-god tootlin’ on the beer 
bottle.’ ( 

‘Wot did you toot?’ demanded Ortheris the prac. 
tical. 

‘Me? Oh!’ Mulvaney sprang up, suiting the action to 
the word, and sliding gravely in front of us, a dilapidated 
but imposing deity in the half light. ‘I sang— 


‘Only say 

You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan. 
Don’t say nay, 

Charmin’ Judy Callaghan. 


I didn’t know me own voice when I sang. An’ oh! 
’twas pitiful to see the women. ‘The darlin’s were down 
on their faces. Whin I passed the last wan I cud see 
her poor little fingers workin’ one in another as if she 
wanted to touch my feet. So I dhrew the tail av this 
pink overcoat over her head for the greater honour, an’ 
I slid into the dhark on the other side av the temple, 
and fetched up in the arms av a big fat priest. All £ 
wanted was to get away clear. So I tuk him by his 


II4 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


greasy throat an’ shut the speech out av him. ‘‘Out!” 
sez I. ‘‘Which way, ye fat heathen?”—“Oh!” sez he. 
“‘Man,” sez I. ‘‘White man, soldier man, common 
soldier man. Where in the name av confusion is the 
back door?” Tne women in the temple were still on 
their faces, an’ a young priest was holdin’ out his arms 
above their heads. 

‘This way,’ sez my fat friend, duckin’ behind a big 
bull-god an’ divin’ into a passage. Thin I remimbered 
that I must ha’ made the miraculous reputation av that 
temple for the next fifty years. ‘Not so fast,” I sez, an’ 
I held out both my hands wid a wink. That ould thief 
smiled like a father. I tuk him by the back av the 
neck in case he should be wishful to put a knife into 
me unbeknownst, an’ I ran him up an’ down the passage 
twice to collect his sensibilities! ‘‘Be quiet,” sez he, in 
English. ‘‘Now you talk sense,’ Isez. ‘“‘Fwhat’ll you 
give me for the use av that most iligant palanquin I 
have no time to take away?’’—‘‘Don’t tell,” sez he. 
“Ts ut like?” sez I. “But ye might give me my rail- 
way fare. I’m far from my home an’ I’ve done you a 
service.” Bhoys, ’tis a good thing to be a priest. The 
ould man niver throubled himself to dhraw from a bank. 
As I will prove to you subsequint, he philandered all 
round the slack av his clothes an’ began dribblin’ ten- 
rupee notes, old gold mohurs, and rupees into my hand 
till I could hould no more.’ 

“You lie!’ said Ortheris. ‘You’re mad or sunstrook. 
A native don’t give coin unless you cut it out o’ ’im. 
*Tain’t nature.’ 

‘Then my lie an’ my sunstroke is concealed under 
that lump av sod yonder,’ retorted Mulvaney unruffled, 
nodding across the scrub. ‘An’ there’s a dale more in 
gature than your squidgy little legs have iver taken yon 


THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY = 115 


to, Orth’ris, meson. Four hundred an’ thirty-four rupees 
by my reckonin’, aw’ a big fat gold necklace that I took 
from him as a remimbrancer, was our share in that 
business.’ 

‘An’ ’e give it you for love?’ said Ortheris. 

‘We were alone in that passage. Maybe I was a 
trifle too pressin’, but considher fwhat I had done for the 
good av the temple and the iverlastin’ joy av those 
women. Iwas cheap at the price. I wud ha’ taken 
more if I cud ha’ found ut. I turned the ould man up- 
side down at the last, but he was milked dhry. Thin he 
opened a door in another passage an’ I found mysilf up 
to my knees in Benares river-water, an’ bad smellin’ ut 
is. More by token I had come out on the river-line 
close to the burnin’ ghat and contagious to a cracklin’ 
corpse. This was in the heart av the night, for I had 
been four hours in the temple. There was a crowd av 
boats tied up, so I tuk wan an’ wint across the river. 
Thin I came home acrost country, lyin’ up by day.’ 

‘How on earth did you manage?’ I said. 

‘How did Sir Frederick Roberts get from Cabul to 
Candahar? He marched an’ he niver tould how near he 
was to breakin’ down. That’s why he is fwhat he is. 
An’ now— Mulvaney yawned portentously. ‘Now I 
will go an’ give myself up for absince widout leave. It’s 
eight an’ twenty days an’ the rough end of the colonel’s 
tongue in orderly room, any way you look at ut. But 
’tis cheap at the price.’ 

‘Mulvaney,’ said I softly. ‘If there happens to be 
any sort of excuse that the colonel can in any way 
accept, I have a notion that you’ll get nothing more than 
the dressing-gown. The new recruits are in, and ; 

‘Not a word more, sorr. Is ut excuses the old man 
wants? Tis not my way, but he shall have thim. T’ll 





116 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


tell him I was engaged in financial operations connected 
wid a church,’ and he flapped his way to cantonments and 
the cells, singing lustily 





‘So they sent a corp’ril’s file, 
And they put me in the gyard-room 
For conduck unbecomin’ of a soldier.’ 


And when he was lost in the midst of the moonlight we 
could hear the refrain— 


Bang upon the big drum, bash upon the cymbals, 
As we go marchin’ along, boys, oh! 

For although in this campaign 

There’s no whisky nor champagne, 

We'll keep our spirits goin’ with a song, boys!’ 


Therewith he surrendered himself to the joyful and 
almost weeping guard, and was made much of by his 
fellows. But to the colonel he said that he had been 
smitten with sunstroke and had lain insensible on a 
villager’s cot for untold hours; and between laughter 
and goodwill the affair was smoothed over, so that he 
could, next day, teach the new recruits how to ‘Fear 
God, Honour the Queen, Shoot Straight, and Keep 
Clean.’ 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 


What did the colonel’s lady think? 
Nobody never knew. 

Somebody asked the sergeant’s wife 
An’ she told ’em true. 

When you git to a man in the case 
They’re like a row o’ pins, 

For the colonel’s lady an’ Judy O’Grady 
Are sisters under their skins. 

Barrack-Room Ballad. 


Aut day I had followed at the heels of a pursuing army 
engaged on one of the finest battles that ever camp of 
exercise beheld. Thirty thousand troops had by the 
wisdom of the Government of India been turned loose 
over a few thousand square miles of country to practise 
in peace what they would never attempt in war. Con- 
sequently cavalry charged unshaken infantry at the trot. 
Infantry captured artillery by frontal attacks delivered 
in line of quarter columns, and mounted infantry skir- 
mished up to the wheels of an armoured train which 
carried nothing more deadly than a twenty-five pounder 
Armstrong, two Nordenfeldts, and a few score volunteers 
all cased in three-eighths-inch boiler-plate. Yet it was 
a very lifelike camp. Operations did not cease at sun- 
down; nobody knew the country and nobody spared 
man or horse. There was unending cavalry scouting 
and almost unending forced work over broken ground. 
The Army of the South had finally pierced the centre of 
the Army of the North, and was pouring through the gap 


117 


118 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


hot-foot to capture a city of strategic importance. Its 
front extended fanwise, the sticks being represented by 
regiments strung out along the line of route backwards to 
the divisional transport columns and all the lumber that 
trails behind an army on the move. On its right the 
broken left of the Army of the North was flying in 
mass, chased by the Southern horse and hammered by 
the Southern guns till these had been pushed far beyond 
the limits of their last support. Then the flying sat 
down to rest, while the elated commandant of the pur- 
suing force telegraphed that he held all in check and 
observation. 

Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his 
right flank a flying column of Northern horse with a 
detachment of Ghoorkhas and British troops had been 
pushed round, as fast as the failing light allowed, to 
cut across the entire rear of the Southern Army, to 
break, as it were, all the ribs of the fan where they 
converged by striking at the transport, reserve ammuni- 
tion, and artillery supplies. Their instructions were 
to go in, avoiding the few scouts who might not have 
been drawn off by the pursuit, and create sufficient 
excitement to impress the Southern Army with the 
wisdom of guarding their own flank and rear before 
they captured cities. It was a pretty manceuvre, neatly 
carried out. 

Speaking for the second division of the Southern 
Army, our first intimation of the attack was at twilight, 
when the artillery were labouring in deep sand, most of 
the escort were trying to help them out, and the main 
body of the infantry had gone on. A Noah’s Ark of 
elephants, camels, and the mixed menagerie of an Indian 
transport-train bubbled and squealed behind the guns 
when there appeared from nowhere in particular British 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 119 


infantry to the extent of three companies, who sprang to 
the heads of the gun-horses and brought all to a stand- 
still amid oaths and cheers. 

‘How’s that, umpire?’ said the major commanding 
the attack, and with one voice the drivers and limber 
gunners answered ‘Hout!’ while the colonel of artillery 
sputtered. 

‘All your scouts are charging our main body,’ said 
the major. ‘Your flanks are unprotected for two miles. 
I think we’ve broken the back of this division. And 
listen,—there go the Ghoorkhas!’ 

A weak fire broke from the rear-guard more than 
a mile away, and was answered by cheerful howlings. 
The Ghoorkhas, who should have swung clear of the 
second division, had stepped on its tail in the dark, 
but drawing off hastened to reach the next line of attack, 
which lay almost parallel to us five or six miles away. 

Our column swayed and surged irresclutely,—three 
batteries, the divisional ammunition reserve, the baggage, 
and a section of the hospital and bearer corps. The 
commandant ruefully promised to report himself ‘cut 
up’ to the nearest umpire, ana “<ommending his cavalry 
and all other cavalry to the specia] care of Eblis, toiled 
on to resume touch with the rest of the division. 

‘We'll bivouac here to-night,’ said the major, ‘I have 
a notion that the Ghoorkhas will get caught. They may 
want us to re-form on. Stand easy till the transport 
gets away.’ 

A hand caught my beast’s bridle and led him out of 
the choking dust; a larger hand deftly canted me out of 
the saddle; and two of the hugest hands in the world 
received me sliding. Pleasant is the lot of the special 
correspondent who falls into such hands as those of 
Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd. 


320 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘An’ that’s all right,’ said the Irishman calmly. “We 
thought we’d find you somewheres here by. Is there 
anything av yours in the transport? Orth’ris ’ll fetch ut 
out.’ 

Ortheris did ‘fetch ut out,’ from under the trunk of an 
elephant, in the shape of a servant and an animal both 
laden with medical comforts. The little man’s eyes 
sparkled. 

‘If the brutil an’ licentious soldiery av these parts 
gets sight av the thruck,’ said Mulvaney, making prac- 
tised investigations, ‘they’ll loot ev’rything. They’re 
bein’ fed on iron-filin’s an’ dog-biscuit these days, but 
glory’s no compensation for a belly-ache. Praise be, 
we're here to protect you, sorr. Beer, sausage, bread 
(soft an’ that’s a cur’osity), soup in a tin, whisky by the 
smell av ut, an’ fowls! Mother av Moses, but ye take 
the field like a confectioner! *Tis scand’lus.’ 

‘’Ere’s a orficer,’ said Ortheris significantly. ‘When 
the sergent’s done lushin’ the privit may clean the pot.’ 

I bundled several things into Mulvaney’s haversack 
before the major’s hand fell on my shoulder and he said 
tenderly, ‘Requisitioned for the Queen’s service. Wolse- 
ley was quite wrong about special correspondents: they 
are the soldier’s best friends. Come and take pot-luck 
with us to-night.’ 

And so it happened amid laughter and shoutings that 
my well-considered commissariat melted away to reap- 
pear later at the mess-table, which was a waterproof 
sheet spread on the ground. The flying column had 
taken three days’ rations with it, and there be few things 
nastier than government rations—especially when govern- 
ment is experimenting with German toys. Erbsenwurst, 
tinned beef ofsurpassing tinniness, compressed vegetables, 
and meat-biscuits may be nourishing, but what Thomas 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 122 


Atkins needs is bulk in his inside. The major, assisted 
by his brother officers, purchased goats for the camp and 
so made the experiment of no effect. Long before the 
fatigue-party sent to collect brushwood had returned, the 
men were settled down by their valises, kettles and pots 
had appeared from the surrounding country and were 
dangling over fires as the kid and the compressed vege- 
table bubbled together; there rose a cheerful clinking of 
mess-tins; outrageous demands for ‘a little more stufifin’ 
with that there liver-wing;’ and gust on gust of chaff as 
pointed as a bayonet and as delicate as a gun-butt. 

‘The boys are in a good temper,’ said the major. 
‘They’ll be singing presently. Well, a night like this is 
enough to keep them happy.’ 

Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars, 
which are not all pricked in on one plane, but, preserving 
an orderly perspective, draw the eye through the velvet 
darkness of the void up to the barred doors of heaven 
itself. The earth was a gray shadow more unreal than 
the sky. We could hear her breathing lightly in the 
pauses between the howling of the jackals, the movement 
of the wind in the tamarisks, and the fitful mutter of 
musketry-fire leagues away to the left. A native woman 
from some unseen hut began to sing, the mail-train 
thundered past on its way to Delhi, and a roosting crow 
cawed drowsily. Then there was a belt-loosening silence 
about the fires, and the even breathing of the crowded 
earth took up the story. 

The men, full fed, turned to tobacco and song,—their 
officers with them. The subaltern is happy who can 
win the approval of the musical critics in his regiment, 
and is honoured among the more intricate step-dancers. 
By him, as by him who plays cricket cleverly, Thomas 
Atkins will stand in time of need, when he will let a 


122 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


better officer go on alone. ‘The ruined tombs of forgotten 
Mussulman saints heard the ballad of Agra Town, The 
Buffalo Battery, Marching to Kabul, The long, long Indian 
Day, The Place where the Punkah-coolie died, and that 
crashing chorus which announces, 


Youth’s daring spirit, manhood’s fire, 
Firm hand and eagle eye, 

Must he acquire who would aspire 
To see the gray boar die. 


To-day, of all those jovial thieves who appropriated 
my commissariat and lay and laughed round that water- 
proof sheet, not one remains. They went to camps 
that were not of exercise and battles without umpires. 
Burmah, the Soudan, and the frontier,—fever and fight, 
—took them in their time. 

I drifted across to the men’s fires in search of Mul- 
vaney, whom I found strategically greasing his feet by 
the blaze. There is nothing particularly lovely in the 
sight of a private thus engaged after a long day’s march, 
but when you reflect on the exact proportion of the 
‘might, majesty, dominion, and power’ of the British 
Empire which stands on those feet you take an interest in 
the proceedings. 

‘There’s a blister, bad luck to ut, on the heel,’ said 
Mulvaney. ‘Ican’t touch ut. Prick ut out, little man.’ 

Ortheris took out his house-wife, eased the trouble 
with a needle, stabbed Mulvaney in the calf with the 
same weapon, and was swiftly kicked into the fire. 

‘I’ve bruk the best av my toes over you, ye grinnin’ 
child av disruption,’ said Mulvaney, sitting cross-legged 
and nursing his feet; then seeing me, ‘Oh, ut’s you, 
sorr! Be welkim, an’ take that maraudin’ scutt’s place. 
Jock, hold him down on the cindhers for a bit.’ 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 123 


But Ortheris escaped and went elsewhere, as I took 
possession of the hollow he had scraped for himself and 
lined with his greatcoat. Learoyd on the other side of 
the fire grinned affably and in a minute fell fast asleep. 

“There’s the height av politeness for you,’ said Mul- 
vaney, lighting his pipe with a flaming branch. ‘But 
Jock’s eaten half a box av your sardines at wan gulp, 
an’ I think the tin too. What’s the best wid you, sorr, 
an’ how did you happen to be on the losin’ side this day 
whin we captured you?’ 

‘The Army of the South is winning all along the 
line,’ I said. 

‘Then that line’s the hangman’s rope, savin’ your 
presence. You'll learn to-morrow how we rethreated to 
dhraw thim on before we made thim trouble, an’ that’s 
what a woman does. By the same tokin, we'll be 
attacked before the dawnin’ an’ ut would be betther not 
to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the 
light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us 
ever so far inside av the enemy’s flank an’ a crowd av 
roarin’, tarin’, squealin’ cavalry gone on just to turn out 
the whole hornet’s nest av them. Av course the enemy 
will pursue, by brigades like as not, an’ thin we’ll have 
to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion 
av Polonius whin he said, ‘‘Don’t fight wid ivry scutt 
for the pure joy av fightin’, but if you do, knock the 
nose av him first an’ frequint.’’ We ought to ha’ gone 
on an’ helped the Ghoorkhas.’ 

‘But what do you know about Polonius?’ I demanded. 
This was a new side of Mulvaney’s character. 

‘All that Shakespeare iver wrote an’ a dale more that 
the gallery shouted,’ said the man of war, carefully lacing 
his boots. ‘Did I not tell you av Silver’s theatre in 
Dublin, whin I was younger than I am now an’ a patron 


“124 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


av the drama? Ould Silver wud never pay actor-man or 
woman their just dues, an’ by consequince his comp’nies 
was collapsible at the last minut. Thin the bhoys wud 
clamour to take a part, an’ oft as not ould Silver made 
them pay for the fun. Faith, ’ve seen Hamlut played 
wid a new black eye an’ the queen as full as a cornu- 
copia. Iremimber wanst Hogin that ’listed in the Black 
Tyrone an’ was shot in South Africa, he sejuced ould 
Silver into givin’ him Hamlut’s part instid av me that 
had a fine fancy for rhetoric in those days. Av course 
I wint into the gallery an’ began to fill the pit wid other 
people’s hats, an’ I passed the time av day to Hogin 
walkin’ through Denmark like a hamstrung mule wid a 
pall on his back. ‘‘Hamlut,” sez I, ‘‘there’s a hole in 
your heel. Pull up your shtockin’s, Hamlut,” sez I. 
““Hamlut, Hamlut, for the love av decincy dhrop that 
skull an’ pull up your shtockin’s.” The whole house 
begun to tell him that. He stopped his soliloquishms 
mid-between. ‘‘My shtockin’s may be comin’ down or 
they may not,’ sez he, screwin’ his eye into the gallery, 
for well he knew who I was. ‘But afther this per- 
formince is over me an’ the Ghost ’ll trample the tripes 
eut av you, Terence, wid your ass’s bray!” An’ that’s 
how I come to know about Hamlut. Eyah! Those 
days, those days! Did you iver have onendin’ devilmint 
an’ nothin’ to pay for it in your life, sorr?’ 

‘Never, without having to pay,’ I said. 

‘That’s thrue! ’Tis mane whin you considher on ut; 
but ut’s the same wid horse or fut. A headache if you 
dhrink, an’ a belly-ache if you eat too much, an’ a heart- 
ache to kape all down. Faith, the beast only gets the 
colic, an’ he’s the lucky man.’ 

He dropped his head and stared into the fire, finger- 
ing his moustache the while. From the far side of 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 125 


the bivouac the voice of Corbet-Nolan, senior subaltern 
of B company, uplifted itself in an ancient and much 
appreciated song of sentiment, the men moaning me- 
lodiously behind him. 


The north wind blew coldly, she drooped from that hour, 
My own little Kathleen, my sweet little Kathleen, 
Kathleen, my Kathleen, Kathleen O’Moore! 


With forty-five O’s in the last word: even at that 
distance you might have cut the soft South Irish accent 
with a shovel. 

‘For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel 
high,’ murmured Mulvaney when the chorus had 
ceased. 

‘What’s the trouble?’ I said gently, for I knew that 
he was a man of an inextinguishable sorrow. 

‘Hear now,’ said he. ‘Ye know what Iam now. J 
know what I mint to be at the beginnin’ av my service. 
I’ve tould you time an’ again, an’ what I have not Dinah 
Shadd has. An’ what am I? Oh, Mary Mother av 
Hiven, an ould dhrunken, untrustable baste av a privit 
that has seen the reg’ment change out from colonel to 
drummer-boy, not wanst or twice, but scores av times! 
Ay, scores! An’ me not so near gettin’ promotion as 
in the first! An’ me livin’ on an’ kapin’ clear av clink, 
not by my own good conduck, but the kindness av some 
orf’cer-bhoy young enough to be son to me! Do I not 
know ut? Can I not tell whin I’m passed over at 
p’rade, tho’ I’m rockin’ full av liquor an’ ready to fall all 
in wan piece, such as even a suckin’ child might see, 
bekaze, “‘Oh, ’tis only ould Mulvaney!” An’ whin I’m 
let off in ord’ly-room through some thrick of the tongue 
an’ a ready answer an’ the ould man’s mercy, is ut smilin’ 
1 feel whin I fall away an’ go back to Dinah Shadd, thryin’ 


126 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


to carry ut all off as a joke? Not I! ’Tis hell to me, 
dumb hell through ut all; an’ next time whin the fit 
comes I will be as bad again. Good cause the reg’ment 
has to know me for the best soldier in ut. Better cause 
have I to know mesilf for the worst man. I’m only fit to 
tache the new drafts what I’ll niver learn mesilf; an’ 
I am sure, as tho’ I heard ut, that the minut wan av 
these pink-eyed recruities gets away from my ‘‘ Mind ye 
now,” an’ “Listen to this, Jim, bhoy,”—sure I am that 
the sergint houlds me up to him for a warnin’. So I 
tache, as they say at musketry-instruction, by direct 
and ricochet fire. Lord be good to me, for I have stud 
some throuble!’ 

‘Lie down and go to sleep,’ said I, not being able to 
comfort or advise. ‘You’re the best man in the regi- 
ment, and, next to Ortheris, the biggest fool. Lie down 
and wait till we’re attacked. What force will they turn 
out? Guns, think you?’ 

‘Try that wid your lorrds an’ ladies, twistin’ an’ turnin’ 
the talk, tho’ you mint ut well. Ye cud say nothin’ to 
help me, an’ yet ye niver knew what cause I had to be 
what I am.’ 

‘Begin at the beginning and go on to the end,’ I said 
royally. ‘But rake up the fire a bit first.’ 

I passed Ortheris’s bayonet for a poker. 

‘That shows how little we know what we do,’ said 
Mulvaney, putting it aside. ‘Fire takes all the heart 
out av the steel, an’ the next time, may be, that our little 
man is fighting for his life his bradawl’ll break, an’ so 
you'll ha’ killed him, manin’ no more than to kape your- 
self warm. ’Tis a recruity’s thrick that. Pass the 
clanin’-rod, sorr.’ 

I snuggled down abased; and after an interval the 
voice of Mulvaney began. 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 127 


‘Did I iver tell you how Dinah Shadd came to be 
wife av mine?’ 

I dissembled a burning anxiety that I had felt for 
some months—ever since Dinah Shadd, the strong, the 
patient, and the infinitely tender, had of her own good 
love and free will washed a shirt for me, moving in a 
barren land where washing was not. 

‘I can’t remember,’ I said casually. ‘Was it before 
or after you made love to Annie Bragin, and got no 
satisfaction?’ 

The story of Annie Bragin is written in another place. 
It is one of the many less respectable episodes in Mul- 
vaney’s chequered career. 

‘Before—before—long before, was that business av 
Annie Bragin an’ the corp’ril’s ghost. Niver woman was 
the worse for me whin I had married Dinah. There’sa 
time for all things, an’ I know how to kape all things in 
place—barrin’ the dhrink, that kapes me in my place wid 
no hope av comin’ to be aught else.’ 

‘Begin at the beginning,’ I insisted. ‘Mrs. Mulvaney 
told me that you married her when you were quartered 
in Krab Bokhar barracks.’ 

‘An’ the same is a cess-pit,’ said Mulvaney piously. 
‘She spoke thrue, did Dinah. ’Twas this way. Talkin’ 
av that, have ye iver fallen in love, sorr?’ 

I preserved the silence of the damned. Mulvaney 
continued— 

‘Thin I will assume that ye have not. J did. In 
the days av my youth, as I have more than wanst tould 
you, I was a man that filled the eye an’ delighted the 
sowl av women. Niver man was hated as I have bin. 
Niver man was loved as I—no, not within half a day’s 
march av ut! For the first five years av my service, 
whin I was what I wud give my sow! to be now, I tuk 


128 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


whatever was within my reach an’ digested ut—an that’s 
more than most men can say. Dhrink I tuk, an’ ut did 
me no harm. By the Hollow av Hiven, I cud play wid 
four women at wanst, an’ kape them from findin’ out 
anythin’ about the other three, an’ smile like a full-blown 
marigold through ut all. Dick Coulhan, av the battery 
we'll have down on us to-night, could drive his team no 
betther than I mine, an’ I hild the worser cattle! An’ so 
I lived, an’ so I was happy till afther that business wid 
Annie Bragin—she that turned me off as cool as a meat- 
safe, an’ taught me where I stud in the mind av an honest 
woman. ’Twas no sweet dose to swallow. 

‘Afther that I sickened awhile an’ tuk thought to my 
reg’mental work; conceiting mesilf I wud study an’ be a 
sergint, an’ a major-gineral twinty minutes afther that. 
But on top av my ambitiousness there was an empty 
place in my sowl, an’ me own opinion av mesilf cud not 
fill ut. Sez I to mesilf, ‘Terence, you’re a great man an’ 
the best set-up in the reg’mint. Go on an’ get promo- 
tion.” Sez mesilf to me, ‘‘What for?” Sez I to mesilf, 
“For the glory av ut!’”? Sez mesilf to me, ‘Will that 
fill these two strong arrums av yours, Terence?” ‘‘G6 
to the devil,’”’ sez I to mesilf. ‘‘Go to the married lines,”’ 
sez mesilf tome. ‘’Tis the same thing,” sez I to mesilf. 
*“‘Av you're the same man, ut is,” said mesilf to me; an’ 
wid that I considhered on ut a long while. Did you 
iver feel that way, sorr?’ 

I snored gently, knowing that if Mulvaney were un- 
interrupted he would go on. The clamour from the 
bivouac fires beat up to the stars, as the rival singers of 
the companies were pitted against each other. 

‘So I felt that way an’ a bad time ut was. Wanst, 
bein’ a fool, I wint into the married lines more for the 
_ sake av spakin’ to our ould colour-sergint Shadd than 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 129 


for any thruck wid women-folk. I was a corp’ril then 
—rejuced aftherwards, but a corp’ril then. I’ve got a 
photograft av mesilf to prove ut. ‘“‘You’ll take a cup 
av tay wid us?” sez Shadd. “I will that,” I sez, “‘tho’ 
tay is not my divarsion.”’ 

‘*T wud be better for you if ut were,”’ sez ould Mother 
Shadd, an’ she had ought to know, for Shadd, in the ind 
av his service, dhrank bung-full each night. 

‘Wid that I tuk off my gloves—there was pipe- 
clay in thim, so that they stud alone—an’ pulled up 
my chair, lookin’ round at the china ornaments an’ bits av 
things in the Shadds’ quarters. They were things that 
belonged to a man, an’ no camp-kit, here to-day an’ dishi- 
pated next. ‘“You’re comfortable in this place, sergint,” 
sez I. ‘‘’Tis the wife that did ut, boy,” sez he, pointin’ 
the stem av his pipe to ould Mother Shadd, an’ she 
smacked the top av his bald head apon the compliment. 
“That manes you want money,” sez she. 

‘An’ thin—an’ thin whin the kettle was to be filled, 
Dinah came in—my Dinah—her sleeves rowled up to 
the elbow an’ her hair in a winkin’ glory over her fore- 
head, the big blue eyes beneath twinklin’ like stars on a 
frosty night, an’ the tread av her two feet lighter than 
waste-paper from the colonel’s basket in ord’ly-room 
whin ut’s emptied. Bein’ but a shlip av a girl she went 
pink at seein’ me, an’ I twisted me moustache an’ looked 
at a picture forninst the wall. Niver show a woman that 
ye care the snap av a finger for her, an’ begad she’ll come 
bleatin’ to your boot-heels!’ 

‘I suppose that’s why you followed Annie Bragin tili 
everybody in the married quarters laughed at you,’ said 
I, remembering that unhallowed wooing and casting off 
the disguise of drowsiness. 

‘I’m layin’ down the gin’ral theory av the attack,’ said 


130 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Mulvaney, driving his boot into the dying fire. ‘Tf 
you read the Soldier’s Pocket Book, which niver any sol- 
dier reads, you'll see that there are exceptions. Whin 
Dinah was out av the door (an’ ’twas as tho’ the sun- 
light had shut too)—‘‘Mother av Hiven, sergint,” sez 
I, “but is that your daughter?’’—“T’ve believed that, 
way these eighteen years,” sez ould Shadd, his eyes twink- 
lin’; ‘‘but Mrs. Shadd has her own opinion, like iv’ry 
woman.”’—‘‘’’Tis wid yours this time, for a mericle,” sez 
Mother Shadd. ‘‘Thin why in the name av fortune did I 
niver see her before?”’ sez I. ‘‘Bekaze you’ve been 
thrapesin’ round wid the married women these three 
years past. She was a bit av a child till last year, an’ 
she shot up wid the spring,” sez ould Mother Shadd. 
“T’ll thrapese no more,” sez I. ‘‘D’yuu mane that?” 
sez ould Mother Shadd, lookin’ at me side-ways like a 
hen looks at a hawk whin the chickens are runnin’ free. 
“Try me, an’ tell,”’ sez I. Wid that I pulled on my gloves, 
dhrank off the tay, an’ went out av the house as stiff as 
at gin’ral p’rade, for weti [ knew that Dinah Shadd’s 
eyes were in the small av my back out av the scullery 
window. Faith! that was the only time I mourned I 
was not a cav’iry-man for the pride av the spurs te 
jingle. 

‘I wint out to think, an’ I did a powerful lot av 
thinkin’, but ut all came round te that shlip av a girl 
in the dotted blue dhress, wid the blue eyes an’ the spar- 
kilin them. Thin I kept off canteen, an’ I kept to the 
married quarthers, or near by, on the chanst av meetin’ 
Dinah. Did I meet her? Oh, my time past, did I not; 
wid a lump in my throat as big as my valise an’ =) 
heart goin’ like a ‘arrier’s forge on a Saturday morning? 
aad “Good cay to ye, Miss Dinah,” an’ ‘‘Good day 
t’you, corp’ril,” for a week or two. and divi a bit further 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 131 


could I get bekaze av the respect I had to that girl that 
I cud ha’ broken betune finger an’ thumb.’ 

Here I giggled as I recalled the gigantic figure of 
Dinah Shadd when she handed me my shirt. 

‘Ye may laugh,’ grunted Mulvaney. ‘ButI’m speakin’ 
the trut’, an’ ’tis you that are in fault. Dinah was a girl 
that wud ha’ taken the imperiousness out av the Duchess 
av Clonmel in those days. Flower hand, foot av shod 
air, an’ the eyes av the livin’ mornin’ she had that is 
my wife to-day—ould Dinah, and niver aught else than 
Dinah Shadd to me. 

‘*Twas after three weeks standin’ off an’ on, an’ niver 
makin’ headway excipt through the eyes, that a little 
drummer-boy grinned in me face whin I had admonished 
him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin’ all over the 
place. ‘An’ I’m not the only wan that doesn’t kape to 
barricks,” sez he. I tuk him by the scruff av his neck, 
—my heart was hung on a hair-thrigger those days, you 
will onderstand—an’ “Out wid ut,” sez I, ‘‘or I’ll lave 
no bone av you unbreakable.”—“‘Speak to Dempsey,” 
sez he howlin’. ‘‘ Dempsey which?” sez I, ““ye unwashed 
limb av Satan.”—‘‘Av the Bob-tailed Dhragoons,” sez 
he. ‘‘He’s seen her home from her aunt’s house in the 
civil lines four times this fortnight.’’-—‘‘ Child!” sez I, 
dhroppin’ him, “‘your tongue’s stronger than your body. 
Go to your quarters. I’m sorry I dhressed you down.” | 

‘At that I went four ways to wanst huntin’ Dempsey. 
I was mad to think that wid all my airs among women 
I shud ha’ been chated by a basin-faced fool av a cav’lry- 
man not fit to trust on a trunk. Presintly I found him 
in our lines—the Bobtails was quartered next us—an’ a 
tallowy, topheavy son av a she-mule he was wid his big 
brass spurs an’ his plastrons on his epigastrons an’ all. 
But he niver flinched a hair. 


132 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘¢¢ A word wid you, Dempsey,’ sezI. ‘‘ You’ve walked 
wid Dinah Shadd four times this fortnight gone.” 

‘““What’s that to your” sez he. “Tl walk forty 
times more, an’ forty on top av that, ye shovel-futted 
clod-breakin’ infantry lance-corp’ril.” 

‘Before I cud gyard he had his gloved fist home on my 
cheek an’ down I went full-sprawl. ‘‘ Will that content 
you?” sez he, blowin’ on his knuckles for all the world 
like a Scots Greys orf’cer. ‘‘Content!” sez I. ‘For 
your own sake, man, take off your spurs, peel your jackut, 
an’ onglove. ’Tis the beginnin’ av the overture; stand 
up | d9 

‘He stud all he know, but he niver peeled his jackut, 
an’ his shoulders had no fair play. I was fightin’ for 
Dinah Shadd an’ that cut on my cheek. What hope had 
he forninst me? ‘Stand up,” sez I, time an’ again whin 
he was beginnin’ to quarter the ground an’ gyard high an’ 
go large. ‘‘This isn’t ridin’-school,”’ I sez. ‘“‘O man, 
stand up an’ let me get in at ye.” But whin I saw 
he wud be runnin’ about, I grup his shtock in my left an’ 
his waist-belt in my right an’ swung him clear to my 
right front, head undher, he hammerin’ my nose till the 
wind was knocked out av him on the bare ground. 
“Stand up,” sez I, “or Pll kick your head into your 
chest!’’ and I wud ha’ done ut too, so ragin’ mad I was. 

‘*“My collar-bone’s bruk,” sez he. ‘‘Help me back 
to lines. TIl walk wid her no more.” So I helped him 
back.’ 

‘And was his collar-bone broken?’ I asked, for I 
fancied that only Learoyd could neatly accomplish that 
terrible throw. 

‘He pitched on his left shoulder-point. Utwas. Next 
day the news was in both barricks, an’ whin I met Dinah 
Shadd wid a cheek on me like all the reg’mintal tailor’s 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 133 


samples there was no “‘Good mornin’, corp’ril,” or aught 
else. ‘An’ what have I done, Miss Shadd,” sez I, very 
bould, plantin’ mesilf forninst her, “‘that ye sheuld not 
pass the time of day?”’ 

‘“Ve’ve half-killed rough-rider Dempsey,” sez she, 
her dear blue eyes fillin’ up. 

‘**May be,” sez I. ‘‘Was he a friend av yours that 
saw ye home four times in the fortnight?”’ 

‘““Ves,” sez she, but her mouth was down at the 
corners. ‘“An’—an’ what’s that to you?” she sez. 

‘““Ask Dempsey,” sez I, purtendin’ to go away. 

‘**Did you fight for me then, ye silly man?” she sez, 
tho’ she knew ut all along. 

‘**Who else?” sez I, an’ I tuk wan pace to the front. 

‘**T wasn’t worth ut,” sez she, fingerin’ in her apron. 

‘*“'That’s forme to say,’ sez I. “Shall I say ut?” 

‘*“Yes,” sez she in a saint’s whisper, an’ at that I 
explained mesilf; and she tould me what ivry man that 
is a man, an’ many that is a woman, hears wanst in his 
life. 

‘*““But what made ye cry at startin’, Dinah, darlin’?” 
sez I. 

‘*Your—your bloody cheek,” sez she, duckin’ her 
little head down on my sash (I was on duty for the day) 
an’ whimperin’ like a sorrowful angil. 

‘Now a man cud take that two ways. I tuk ut as 
pleased me best an’ my first kiss wid ut. Mother av 
Innocence! but I kissed her on the tip av the nose an’ 
undher the eye; an’ a girl that let’s a kiss come tumble- 
ways like that has never been kissed before. Take note 
av that, sorr. Thin we wint hand in hand to ould Mother 
Shadd like two little childher, an’ she said ’twas no bad 
thing, an’ ould Shadd nodded behind his pipe, an’ Dinah 
ran away toherown room. That day I throd on rollin’ 


134 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


clouds. All earth was too small to hould me. Begad, I 
cud ha’ hiked the sun out av the sky for a live coal 
to my pipe, so magnificent I was. But I tuk recruities 
at squad-drill instid, an’ began wid general battalion 
advance whin I shud ha’ been balance-steppin’ them. 
Eyah! that day! that day!’ 

A very long pause. ‘Well?’ said I. 

‘*Twas all wrong,’ said Mulvaney, with an enormous 
sigh. ‘An’ I know that ev’ry bit av ut was my own 
foolishness. ‘That night I tuk maybe the half av three 
pints—not enough to turn the hair of a man in his 
natural senses. But I was more than half drunk wid pure 
joy, an’ that canteen beer was so much whisky tome. I 
can’t tell how it came about, but dbekaze I had no thought 
for anywan except Dinah, bekaze I hadn’t slipped her 
little white arms from my neck five minuts, bekaze the 
breath of her kiss was not gone from my mouth, I must 
go through the married lines on my way to quarters an’ 
I must stay talkin’ to a red-headed Mullingar heifer av a 
girl, Judy Sheehy, that was daughter to Mother Sheehy, 
the wife of Nick Sheehy, the canteen-sergint—the Black 
Curse av Shielygh be on the whole brood that are above 
groun’ this day! 

‘**An’ what are ye houldin’ your head that high for, 
corp’ril?”? sez Judy. ‘Come in an’ thry a cup av tay,” 
she sez, standin’ in the doorway. Bein’ an ontrustable 
fool, an’ thinkin’ av anything but tay, I wint. 

‘**Mother’s at canteen,” sez Judy, smoothin’ the hair 
av hers that was like red snakes, an’ lookin’ at me corner- 
ways out av her green cats’ eyes. “Ye will not mind, 
corp’ril?”’ 

‘*“*T can endure,” sez I; ould Mother Sheehy bein’ no 
divarsion av mine, nor her daughter too. Judy fetched 
the tea things an’ put thim on the table, leanin’ over me 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 135 


very close to get thim square. I dhrew back, thinkin’ 
av Dinah. 

‘Ts ut afraid you are av a girl alone?” sez Judy. 

**“No,” sez I. ‘‘Why should I be?”’ 

‘““That rests wid the girl,” sez Judy, dhrawin’ her 
chair next to mine. 

‘Thin there let ut rest,” sez I; an’ thinkin’ I’d been 
a trifle onpolite, I sez, ‘“‘ The tay’s not quite sweet enough 
for my taste. Put your little finger in the cup, Judy. 
Twill make ut necthar.” 

‘““What’s necthar?”’ sez she. 

‘**Somethin’ very sweet,” sez I; an’ for the sinful life 
av me I cud not help lookin’ at her out av the corner av 
my eye, as I was used to look at a woman. 

‘**Go on wid ye, corp’ril,” sez she. ‘You're a flirrt.” 

‘““On me sowl I’m not,” sez I. 

‘Then you’re a cruel handsome man, an’ that’s 
worse,” sez she, heaving big sighs an’ lookin’ crossways. 

‘You know your own mind,” sez I. 

‘<**Twud be better for me if I did not,” she sez. 

‘*“There’s a dale to be said on both sides av that,”’ sez 
I, unthinkin’. 

“Say your own part av ut, then, Terence, darlin’,”’ 
sez she; “‘for begad 1’m thinkin’ I’ve said too much or 
too little for an honest girl,” an’ wid that she put her 
arms round my neck an’ kissed me. 

‘*“There’s no more to be said afther that,” sez I, kissin’ 
her back again—Oh the mane scutt that I was, my head 
ringin’ wid Dinah Shadd! How does ut come about, 
sorr, that when a man has put the coiether on wan wo- 
man, he’s sure bound to put it on another? ’Tis the 
same thing at musketry. Wan day ivry shot goes wide 
or into the bank, an’ the next, lay high lay low, sight or 
snap, ye can’t get off the bull’s-eye for ten shots runnin’.’ 


136 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘That only happens to a man who has had a good 
deal of experience. He does it without thinking,’ I 
replied. 

‘Thankin’ you for the complimint, sorr, ut may be so. 
But I’m doubtful whether you mint ut for a complimint. 
Hear now; I sat there wid Judy on my knee tellin’ me 
all manner av nonsinse an’ only sayin’ “‘yes” an’ “‘no,” 
when I’d much better ha’ kept tongue betune teeth. An’ 
that was not an hour afther [ had left Dinah! What I 
was thinkin’ av I cannot say. Presintly, quiet as a cat, 
ould Mother Sheehy came in velvet-dhrunk. She had 
her daughter’s red hair, but ’twas bald in patches, an’ I 
cud see in her wicked ould face, clear as ightnin’, what 
Judy wud be twenty years to come. I was for jumpin’ 
up, but Judy niver moved. 

‘*Terence has promust, mother,”’ sez she, an’ the could 
sweat bruk out all over me. Ould Mother Sheehy sat 
down of a heap an’ began playin’ wid the cups. ‘Thin 
you’re a well-matched pair,” she sez very thick. ‘For 
he’s the biggest rogue that iver spoiled the queen’s shoe- 
leather” an’ 

‘**T’m off, Judy,” sez I. “Ye should not talk nonsinse 
to your mother. Get her to bed, girl.” 

‘*““Nonsinse!”’? sez the ould woman, prickin’ up her 
ears like a cat an’ grippin’ the table-edge. “ ’Twill be 
the most nonsinsical nonsinse for you, ye grinnin* badger, 
if nonsinse ’tis. Git clear, you. I’m goin’ to bed.” 

‘I ran out into the dhark, my head in a stew an’ my 
heart sick, but I had sinse enough to see that I’d brought 
ut all on mysilf. ‘‘It’s this to pass the time av day toa 
panjandhrum av hell-cats,” sez I. “What I’ve said, an’ 
what I’ve not said do not matther. Judy an’ her dam 
will hould me for a promust man, an’ Dinah will give me 
the go, an’ I desarve ut. Iwill go an’ get dhrunk,” sez I, 





THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 137 


“an’ forget about ut, for ’tis plam I’m nota marrin’ 
man.” 

‘On my way to canteen I ran against Lascelles, colour- 
sergint that was av E Comp’ny, a hard, hard man, wid 
a torment av a wife. ‘You’ve the head av a drowned 
man on your shoulders,”’ sez he; “‘an’ you’re goin’ where 
you'll get a worse wan. Come back,” sez he. ‘“‘Let me 
go,” sez I. “I’ve thrown my luck over the wall wid 
my own hand!’—‘‘Then that’s not the way to get ut 
back again,” sez he. ‘Have out wid your throuble, ye 
fool-bhoy.” An’ I tould him how the matther was. 

‘He sucked in his lower lip. ‘‘ You’ve been thrapped,”’ 
sez he. “Ju Sheehy wud be the betther for a man’s 
name to hers as soon as can. An’ ye thought ye’d put 
the comether on her,—that’s the natural vanity of the 
baste. Terence, you’re a big born fool, but you’re not 
bad enough to marry into that comp’ny. If you said 
anythin’, an’ for all your protestations I’m sure ve did— 
or did not, which is worse,—eat ut all—lie like the father 
of all hes, but come out av ut free av Judy. Do FI not 
know what ut is to marry a woman that was the very 
spit an’ image av Judy whin she was young? Pm 
gettin’ old an’ I’ve larnt patience, but you, Terence, 
you'd raise hand on Judy an’ kill her in a year. Never 
mind if Dinah gives you the go, you’ve desarved ut; 
never mind if the whole reg’mint laughs you all day. 
Get shut av Judy an’ her mother. They can’t dhrag 
you to church, but if they do, they’ll dhrag you to 
hell. Go back to your quarters and He down,” sez he. 
Thin over his shoulder, ‘“‘ You must ha’ done with thim.”’ 

‘Next day I wint to see Dinah, but there was no 
tucker in me as I walked. I knew the throuble wud 
come soon enough widout any handlin’ av mine, an’ 
I dreaded uf sore. 


138 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘I heard Judy callin’ me, but I hild straight on te 
the Shadds’ quarthers, an’ Dinah wud ha’ kissed me but 
I put her back. 

‘*“Whin all’s said, darlin’,” sez I, ‘‘you can give ut me 
if ye will, tho’ I misdoubt ’twill be so easy to come by 
then.” 

‘T had scarce begun to put the explanation into shape 
before Judy an’ her mother came to the door. I think 
there was a verandah, but I’m forgettin’. 

‘Will ye not step in?” sez Dinah, pretty and polite, 
though the Shadds had no dealin’s with the Sheehys. 
Ould Mother Shadd looked up quick, an’ she was the fust 
to see the throuble; for Dinah was her daughter. 

‘**1’m pressed for time to-day,” sez Judy as bould 
as brass; ‘‘an’ I’ve only come for Terence,—my promust 
man. ’Tis strange to find him here the day afther the 
day.” 

‘Dinah looked at me as though I had hit her, an’ I 
answered straight. 

‘There was some nonsinse last night at the Sheehys’ 
quarthers, an’ Judy’s carryin’ on the joke, darlin’,” 
sez 

‘**At the Sheehys’ quarthers?” sez Dinah very slow, 
an’ Judy cut in wid: ‘He was there from nine till ten, 
Dinah Shadd, an’ the betther half av that time I was 
sittin’ on his knee, Dinah Shadd. Ye may look and ye 
may look an’ ye may look me up an’ down, but ye won’t 
look away that Terence is my promust man. ‘Terence, 
darlin’, ’tis time for us to be comin’ home.” 

‘Dinah Shadd niver said word to Judy. “Ye left me 
at half-past eight,’’ she sez to me, “‘an I niver thought 
that ye’d leave me for Judy,—promises or no promises. 
Go back wid her, you that have to be fetched by a girl! 
I’m done with you,” sez she, and she ran into her own 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 139 


room, her mother followin’. So I was alone wid those 
two women and at liberty to spake my sentiments. 

“Judy Sheehy,” sez I, “if you made a fool av me 
betune the lights you shall not do ut in the day. I 
niver promised you words or lines.”’ 

“Vou lie,” sez ould Mother Sheehy, “‘an’ may ut 
choke you where you stand!”’ She was far gone in 
dhrink. 

‘* An’ tho’ ut choked me where I stud I’d not change,” 
sez I. ‘‘Go home, Judy. I take shame for a decent 
girl like you dhraggin’ your mother out bare-headed on 
this errand. Hear now, and have ut for an answer. I 
gave my word to Dinah Shadd yesterday, an’, more 
blame to me, I was wid you last night talkin’ nonsinse 
but nothin’ more. You’ve chosen to thry to hould me 
on ut. I will not be held thereby for anythin’ in the 
world. Is that enough?”’ 

‘Judy wint pink all over. “An’ I wish you joy av 
the perjury,” sez she, duckin’ a curtsey. ‘‘ You’ve lost a 
woman that would ha’ wore her hand to the bone for 
your pleasure; an’ ’deed, Terence, ye were not thrapped. 
: .’ Lascelles must ha’ spoken plain to her. “TI 
am such as Dinah is—’deed Iam! Ye’ve lost a fool av 
a girl that’ll niver look at you again, an’ ye’ve lost what 
he niver had,—your common honesty. If you manage 
your men as you manage your love-makin’, small won- 
dher they call you the worst corp’ril in the comp’ny. 
Come away, mother,”’ sez she. 

‘But divil a fut would the ould woman budge! ‘“ D’you 
hould by that?” sez she, peerin’ up under her thick gray 
eyebrows. 

‘Ay, an’ wud,” sez I, “‘tho’ Dinah give me the go 
twinty times. I'll have no thruck with you or yours,” 
sez I. ‘Take your child away, ye shameless woman.” 


40 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


“““ An’ am I shameless?”’ sez she, bringin’ her hands 
up above her head. ‘‘Thin what are you, ye lyin’, 
schamin’, weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son av a sutler? 
Am J shameless? Who put the open shame on me 
an’ my child that we shud go beggin’ through the lines 
in the broad daylight for the broken word of a man? 
Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence Mul- 
vaney, that think yourself so strong! By Mary and 
the saints, by blood and water an’ by ivry sorrow that 
came into the world since the beginnin’, the black blight 
fall on you and yours, so that you may niver be free 
from pain for another when ut’s not your own! May 
your heart bleed in your breast drop by drop wid all 
your friends laughin’ at the bleedin’! Strong you think 
yourself? “lay your strength be a curse to you to 
dhrive you into the divil’s hands against your own will! 
Clear-eyed you are? May your eyes see clear ivry step 
av the dark path you take till the hot cindhers av hell 
put thim out! May the ragin’ dry thirst in my own ould 
bones go to you that you shall niver pass bottle full nor 
glass empty. God preserve the light av your onder- 
standin’ to you, my jewel av a bhoy, that ye may niver 
forget what you mint to be an’ do, whin you’re wallowin’ 
in the muck! May ye see the betther and follow the 
worse as long as there’s breath in your body; an’ may 
ye die quick in a strange land, watchin’ your death 
before ut takes you, an’ onable to stir hand or foot!” 

‘TI heard a scufflin’ in the room behind, and thin 
Dinah Shadd’s hand dhropped into mine like a rose- 
leaf into a muddy road. 

‘““'The half av that I’ll take,” sez she, ‘‘an’ more too if 
Ican. Go home, ye silly talkin’ woman,—go home an’ 
confess.” | 

‘Come away! Come away!” sez Judy, pullin’ her 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 14! 


mother by the shawl. ‘‘’Twas none av Terence’s fault. 
For the love av Mary stop the talkin’!” 

‘““ An’ you!” said ould Mother Sheehy, spinnin’ round 
forninst Dinah. ‘Will ye take the half av that man’s 
load? Stand off from him, Dinah Shadd, before he takes 
you down too—you that look to be a quarther-master- 
sergeant’s wife in five years. You look too high, child. 
You shall wash.for the quarther-master-sergeant, whin he 
plases to give you the job out av charity; but a privit’s 
wife you shall be to the end, an’ ivry sorrow of a privit’s 
wife you shall know and niver a joy but wan, that shail 
go from you like the running tide from a rock. ‘The pain. 
av bearin’ you shall know but niver the pleasure av 
giving the breast; an’ you shall put away a man-child 
into the common ground wid niver a priest to say a 
prayer over him, an’ on that man-child ye shall think 
ivry day av your life. Think long, Dinah Shadd, for 
you'll niver have another tho’ you pray till your knees 
are bleedin’. The mothers av childher shall mock you 
behind your back when you’re wringing over the wash- 
tub. You shall know what ut is to help a dhrunken 
husband home an’ see him go to the gyard-room. Will 
that plase you, Dinah Shadd, that won’t be seen talkin’ 
to my daughter? You shall talk to worse than Judy 
before all’s over. The sergints’ wives shall look down on 
you contemptuous, daughter av a sergint, an’ you shall 
cover ut all up wid a smiling face when your heart’s 
burstin’. Stand off av him, Dinah Shadd, for I’ve put 
the Black Curse of Shielygh upon him an’ his own mouth 
shall make ut good.” 

‘She pitched forward on her head an’ began foamin’ at 
the mouth. Dinah Shadd ran out wid water, an’ Judy 
dhragged the ould woman into the verandah till she sat 


up- 


142 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘*T’m old an’ forlore,” she sez, thremblin’ an’ cryin’, 
‘and ’tis like I say a dale more than I mane.” 

‘““When you’re able to walk,—go,” says ould Mother 
Shadd. ‘This house has no place for the likes av you 
that have cursed my daughter.” 

‘**EKyah!” said the ould woman. ‘“‘Hard words 
break no bones, an’ Dinah Shadd’ll kape the love 
av her husband till my bones are green corn. Judy 
darlin’, I misremember what I came here for. Can 
you lend us the bottom av a taycup av tay, Mrs. Shadd?” 

‘But Judy dhragged her off cryin’ as tho’ her heart 
wud break. An’ Dinah Shadd an’ J, in ten minutes we 
had forgot ut all.’ 

‘Then why do you remember it now?’ said I. 

‘Is ut like I’d forget? Ivry word that wicked ould 
woman spoke fell thrue in my life aftherwards, an’ I cud 
ha’ stud ut all—stud ut all—excipt when my little Shadd 
was born. That was on the line av march three months 
afther the regiment was taken with cholera. We were 
betune Umballa an’ Kalka thin, an’ I was on picket. 
Whin I came off duty the women showed me the child, 
an’ ut turned on uts side an’ died as I looked. We 
buried him by the road, an’ Father Victor was a day’s 
march behind wid the heavy baggage, so the comp’ny 
captain read a prayer. An’ since then I’ve been a 
childless man, an’ all else that ould Mother Sheehy put 
upon me an’ Dinah Shadd. What do you think, sorr?’ 

I thought a good deal, but it seemed better then to 
reach out for Mulvaney’s hand. The demonstration 
nearly cost me the use of three fingers. Whatever he 
knows of his weaknesses, Mulvaney is entirely igno- 
rant of his strength. 

‘But what do you think?’ he repeated, as I was 
straightening out the crushed fingers. 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 143 


My reply was drowned in yells and outcries from 
the next fire, where ten men were shouting for ‘Orth’ris,’ 
‘Privit Orth’ris,’ ‘Mistah Or—ther—tris!’ ‘Deah boy,’ 
‘Cap’n Orth’ris,’ ‘Field-Marshal Orth’ris,’ ‘Stanley, you 
pen’north o’ pop, come ’ere to your own comp’ny!’ And 
the cockney, who had been delighting another audience 
with recondite and Rabelaisian yarns, was shot down 
among his admirers by the major force. 

‘You’ve crumpled my dress-shirt ’orrid,’ said he, ‘an’ 
I shan’t sing no more to this ’ere bloomin’ drawin’-room.’ 

Learoyd, roused by the confusion, uncoiled himself, 
crept behind Ortheris, and slung him aloft on his shoul- 
ders. 

‘Sing, ye bloomin’ hummin’ bird!’ said he, and 
Ortheris, beating time on Learoyd’s skull, delivered 
himself, in the raucous voice of the Ratcliffe Highway, of 
this song :— 


My girl she give me the go onst, 
When I was a London lad, 

An’ I went on the drink for a fortnight, 
An’ then I went to the bad. 

The Queen she give me a shillin’ 
To fight for ’er over the seas; 

But Guv’ment built me a fever-trap, 
An’ Injia give me disease. 


Chorus. 


Ho! don’t you ’eed what a girl says, 
An’ don’t you go for the beer; 

But I was an ass when I was at grass, 
An’ that is why I’m ’ere. 


I fired a shot at a Afghan, 
The beggar ’e fired again, 

An’ I lay on my bed with a ’ole in my ’ed; 
An’ missed the next campaign! 


144 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


I up with my gun at a Burman 
Who carried a bloomin’ dah, 

But the cartridge stuck and the bay’nit bruk, 
An’ all I got was the scar. 


Chorus. 
Ho! don’t you aim at a Afghan 
When you stand on the sky-line clear; 
An’ don’t you go for a Burman 
If none o’ your friends is near. 


I served my time for a corp’ral, 
An’ wetted my stripes with pop, 
For I went on the bend with a intimate friend, 
An’ finished the night in the ‘shop.’ 
I served my time for a sergeant; 
The colonel ’e sez ‘No! 
The most you'll see is a full C. B.’! 
An’ .. . very next night ’twas so. 


Chorus. 


Ho! don’t you go for a corp’ral 
Unless your ’ed is clear; 

But I was an ass when I was at grass, 
An’ that is why I’m ’ere. 


T’ve tasted the luck o’ the army 
In barrack an’ camp an’ clink, 

An’ I lost my tip through the bloomin’ trip 
Along o’ the women an’ drink. 

I’m down at the heel o’ my service 
An’ when I am laid on the shelf, 

My very wust friend from beginning to end 
By the blood of a mouse was myself! 


Chorus. 
Ho! don’t you ’eed what a girl says, 
An’ don’t you go for the beer; 
But I was an aas when I was at grass, 
An’ that is why I’m’ ere. 
® Confined to barracks, 


THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 145 


‘Ay, listen to our little man now, singin’ an’ shoutin’ 
as tho’ trouble had niver touched him. D’you remember 
when he went mad with the home-sickness?’ said Mul- 
vaney, recalling a never-to-be-forgotten season when 
Ortheris waded through the deep waters of affliction and 
behaved abominably. ‘But he’s talkin’ bitter truth, 
though. Eyah! 


‘My very worst frind from beginnin’ to ind 
By the blood av a mouse was mesilf!’ 


When I woke I saw Mulvaney, the night-dew gem- 
ming his moustache, leaning on his rifle at picket, lonely 
as Prometheus on his rock, with I know not wha¢ vultures 
tearing his liver. 


ON GREENHOW HILL 


To Love’s low voice she lent a careless ear; 

Her hand within his rosy fingers lay, 

A chilling weight. She would not turn or hears; 

But with averted face went on her way. 

But when pale Death, all featureless and grim, 

Lifted his bony hand, and beckoning 

Held out his cypress-wreath, she followed hin, 

And Love was left forlorn and wondering, 

That she who for his bidding would not stay, 

At Death’s first whisper rose and went away. 
Rivals. 


‘OHE, Ahmed Din! Shafiz Ullahahoo! Bahadur Khan, 
,where are you? Come out of the tents, as I have done, 
and fight against the English. Don’t kill your own kin! 
Come out to me!’ 

The deserter from a native corps was crawling round 
the outskirts of the camp, firing at intervals, and shout- 
ing Invitations to his old comrades. Misled by the rain 
and the darkness, he came to the English wing of the 
camp, and with his yelping and rifle-practice disturbed 
the men. They had been making roads all day, and 
were tired. 

Ortheris was sieeping at Learcyd’s feet. ‘Wot’s ail 
that?’ he said thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider 
bullet ripped its way through the tent wall. The men 
swore. ‘It’s that bloomin’ deserter from the Auranga- 
badis,’ said Ortheris. ‘Git up, some one, an’ tell ’im 
*e’s come to the wrong shop.’ 


146 


ON GREENHOW HILL 147 


‘Go to sleep, little man,’ said Mulvaney, who was 
steaming nearest the door. ‘I can’t arise an’ expaytiate 
with him. ’Tis rainin’ entrenchin’ tools outside.’ 

‘’Tain’t because you bloomin’ can’t. It’s ’cause you 
bloomin’ won’t, ye long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar, you. 
’Ark to ’im ’owlin’!’ 

‘Wot’s the good of argifying? Put a bullet into the 
swine! ’E’s keepin’ us awake!’ said another voice. 

A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry 
whined from the darkness— 

‘*Tain’t no good, sir. I can’t see ‘im. ’E’s ’idin’ 
somewhere down ‘ill.’ 

Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. ‘Shall I try to 
get ’im, sir?’ said he. 

‘No,’ was the answer. ‘Lie down. I won’t have the 
whole camp shooting all round the clock. Tell him to go 
and pot his friends.’ 

Ortheris considered fora moment. ‘Then, putting his 
head under the tent wall, he called, as a ’bus conductor 
calls in a block, ‘’Igher up, there! ’Igher up!’ 

The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down 
wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a 
mistake, went off to worry his own regiment half a mile 
away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis 
were very angry with him for disgracing their colours. 

‘An’ that’s all right,’ said Ortheris, withdrawing his 
head as he heard the hiccough of the Sniders in the dis- 
tance. ‘S’elp me Gawd, tho’, that man’s not fit to live 
—messin’ with my beauty-sleep this way.’ 

‘Go out and shoot him in the morning, then,’ said 
the subaltern incautiously. ‘Silence in the tents now. 
Get your rest, men.’ 

Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in 
two minutes there was no sound except. the rain on the 


148 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


canvas and the all-embracing and elemental snoring of 
Learoyd. 

The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and 
for a week had been waiting for a flying column to make 
connection. The nightly rounds of the deserter and his 
friends had become a nuisance. 

In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sun- 
shine and cleaned their grimy accoutrements. The 
native regiment was to take its turn of road-making that 
day while the Old Regiment loafed. 

‘I’m goin’ to lay for a shot at that man,’ said Ortheris, 
when he had finished washing out his rifle. ‘’E comes 
up the watercourse every evenin’ about five o’clock. If 
we go and lie out on the north ill a bit this afternoon we’ll 
get ‘im.’ 

‘You're a bloodthirsty little mosquito,’ said Mulvaney, 
blowing blue clouds into the air. ‘But I suppose I will 
have to come wid you. Fwhere’s Jock?’ 

‘Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, ’cause ’e thinks 
’isself a bloomin’ marksman,’ said Ortheris with scorn. 

The ‘Mixed Pickles’ were a detachment of picked 
shots, generally employed in clearing spurs of hills when 
the enemy were too impertinent. ‘This taught the young 
officers how to handle men, and did not do the enemy 
much harm. Mulvaney and Ortheris strolled out of 
camp, and passed the Aurangabadis going to their road- 
making. 

‘You’ve got to sweat to-day,’ said Ortheris genially. 
‘We're going to get your man. You didn’t knock ’im 
out last night by any chance, any of you?’ 

‘No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one 
shot at him,’ said a private. ‘He’s my cousin, and I 
ought to have cleared our dishonour. But good luck to 
you.’ 


ON GREENHOW HILL 149 


They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris 
reading, because, as he explained, ‘this is a long-range 
show, an’ I’ve got to do it.’ His was an almost pas- 
sionate devotion to his rifle, which, by barrack-room 
report, he was supposed to kiss every night before turn- 
ing in. Charges and scuffles he held in contempt, and, 
when they were inevitable, slipped between Mulvaney 
and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for his skin as well 
as theirown. They never failed him. He trotted along, 
questing like a hound on a broken trail, through the 
wood of the north hill. At last he was satisfied, and 
threw himself down on the soft pme-needled slope that 
commanded a clear view of the watercourse and a brown, 
bare hillside beyond it. The trees made a scented dark- 
ness in which an army corps could have hidden from the 
sun-glare without. 

‘?Ere’s the tail o’ the wood,’ said Ortheris. ‘’E’s got 
to come up the watercourse, ’cause it gives ’im cover. 
We'll lay ’ere. ’Tain’t not arf so bloomin’ dusty 
neither.’ 

He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white 
violets. No one had come to tell the flowers that the 
season of their strength was long past, and they had 
bloomed merrily in the twilight of the pines. 

‘This is something like,’ he said luxuriously. ‘Wot 
a ’evinly clear drop for a bullet acrost! How much d’you 
make it, Mulvaney?’ 

‘Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekaze the air’s 
so thin.’ 

Wop! wop! wop! went a volley of musketry on the 
rear face of the north hill. 

‘Curse them Mixed Pickles firin’ at nothin’! They’ll 
‘scare arf the country.’ 

‘Thry a sightin’ shot in the middle of the row,’ said 


450 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Mulvaney, the man of many wiles. ‘There’s a red rock 
yonder he’ll be sure to pass. Quick!’ | 

Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and 
fired. The bullet threw up a feather of dust by a clump 
of gentians at the base of the rock. 

‘Good enough!’ said Ortheris, snapping the scale down. 
‘You snick your sights to mine or a little lower. You’re 
always firin’ high. But remember, first shot to me. 
O Lordy! but it’s a lovely afternoon.’ 

The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a 
tramping of men in the wood. ‘The two lay very quiet, 
for they knew that the British soldier is desperately 
prone to fire at anything that moves or calls. Then 
Learoyd appeared, his tunic ripped across the breast by 
a bullet, looking ashamed of himself. He flung down on 
the pine-needles, breathing in snorts. 

‘One o’ them damned gardeners o’ th’ Pickles,’ said 
he, fingering the rent. ‘Firin’ to th’ right flank, when 
he knowed I was there. If I knew who he was Id ’a’ 
rippen the hide offan him. Look at ma tunic!’ 

‘That’s the spishil trustability ava marksman. Train 
him to hit a fly wid a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an’ 
he loose on anythin’ he sees or hears up to th’ mile. 
You’re well out av that fancy-firin’ gang, Jock. Stay 
here.’ 

‘Bin firin’ at the bloomin’ wind in the bloomin’ tree- 
tops,’ said Ortheris with a chuckle. ‘I'll show you some 
firin’ later on.’ 

They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun warmed 
them where they lay. The Mixed Pickles ceased firing, 
and returned to camp, and left the wood to a few scared 
apes. The watercourse lifted up its voice in the silence, 
and talked foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the 
dull thump of a blasting charge three miles away told 


ON GREENHOW HILL £53 


that the Aurangabadis were in difficulties with their 
road-making. ‘The men smiled as they listened and lay 
still, soaking in the warm leisure. Presently Learoyd, 
between the whiffs of his pipe— 

‘Seems queer—about ’im yonder—desertin’ at all.’ 

‘°E’Il be a bloomin’ side queerer when I’ve done with 
‘im,’ said Ortheris. They were talking in whispers, for 
the stillness of the wood and the desire of slaughter lay 
heavy upon them. 

‘I make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin’; 
but, my faith! I make less doubt ivry man has good 
reason for killin’ him,’ said Mulvaney. 

‘Happen there was a lass tewed up wi’ it. Men do 
more than more for th’ sake of a lass.’ 

“They make most av us ’list. They’ve no manner av 
right to make us desert.’ 

‘Ah; they make us ’list, or their fathers do,’ said 
Learoyd softly, his helmet over his eyes. 

Ortheris’s brows contracted savagely. He was watch- 
ing the valley. ‘If it’s a girl I'll shoot the beggar twice 
over, an’ second time for bein’ a fool. You’re blasted 
sentimental all of a sudden. Thinkin’ o’ your last near 
shave?’ 

‘Nay, lad; ah was but thinkin’ o’ what had hap- 
pened.’ 

‘An’ fwhat has hacpened, ye lumberin’ child av 
calamity, that you’re lowing like a cow-calf at the back 
ay the pasture, an’ suggestin’ invidious excuses for the 
man Staniey’s goin’ to kill. Ye’il have to wait another 
hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an’ bellow 
melojus to the moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet 
graze to fetch aught out av you. Discourse, Don Juan! 
The a-moors av Lotharius Learoyd! Stanley, kape a 
rowlin’ rig’mental eye on the valley.’ 


152 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘It’s along o’ yon hill there,’ said Learoyd, watching 
the bare sub-Himalayan spur that reminded him of his 
Yorkshire moors. He was speaking more to himself 
than his fellows. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘Rumbolds Moor stands 
up ower Skipton town, an’ Greenhow Hill stands up 
ower Pately Brig. I reckon you’ve never heeard tell o’ 
Greenhow Hill, but yon bit o’ bare stuff if there was 
nobbut a white road windin’ is like ut; strangely like. 
Moors an’ moors an’ moors, wi’ never a tree for shelter, 
an’ gray houses wi’ flagstone rooves, and pewits cryin’, 
an’ a windhover goin’ to and fro just like these kites. 
And cold! A wind that cuts you likea knife. You could 
tell Greenhow Hill folk by the red-apple colour o’ their 
cheeks an’ nose tips, and their blue eyes, driven into pin- 
points by the wind. Miners mostly, burrowin’ for lead 
i’ th’ hillsides, followin’ the trail of th’ ore vein same as a 
field-rat. It was the roughest minin’ I ever seen. Yo’d 
come on a bit o’ creakin’ wood windlass like a well-head, 
an’ you was let down’ th’ bight of a rope, fendin’ yoursen 
off the side wi’ one hand, carryin’ a candle stuck in a 
lump o’ clay with t’other, an’ clickin’ hold of a rope with 
t’other hand.’ 

‘An’ that’s three of them,’ said Mulvaney. ‘Must be 
a good climate in those parts.’ 

Learoyd took no heed. 

‘An’ then yo’ came to a level, where you crept on 
your hands and knees through a mile o’ windin’ drift, an’ 
you come out into a cave-place as big as Leeds Town- 
hall, with a engine pumpin’ water from workin’s ’at went 
deeper still. It’s a queer country, let alone minin’, for 
the hill is full of those natural caves, an’ the rivers an’ 
the becks drops into what they call pot-holes, an’ come 
out again miles away.’ 

‘Wot was you doin’ there?’ said Ortheris. 


ON GREENHOW HILL 153 


‘IT was a young chap then, an’ mostly went wi’ ’osses, 
leadin’ coal and lead ore; but at th’ time I’m tellin’ on I 
was drivin’ the waggon-team i’ th’ big sumph. I didn’t 
belong to that country-side by rights. I went there 
because of a little difference at home, an’ at fust I took 
up wi’ a rough lot. One night we’d been drinkin’, an’ I 
must ha’ hed more than I could stand, or happen th’ ale 
was none so good. Though?’ them days, By for God, I 
never seed bad ale.’ He flung his arms over his head, and 
gripped a vast handful of white violets. ‘Nah,’ said 
he, ‘I never seed the ale I could not drmk, the bacca I 
could not smoke, nor the lass I could not kiss. Well, 
we mun have a race home, the lot on us. I lost all th’ 
others, an’ when I was climbin’ ower one of them walls 
built o’ loose stones, I comes down into the ditch, stones 
and all,an’ brokemy arm. Notas Iknawed much about 
it, for I fell on th’ back of my head, an’ was knocked 
stupid like. An’ when I come to mysen it were mornin’, 
an’ I were lyin’ on the settle i’ Jesse Roantree’s house- 
place, an’ ’Liza Roantree was settin’ sewin’. I ached all 
ovver, and my mouth were like a lime-kiln. She gave 
me a drink out of a china mug wi’ gold letters—‘‘ A Pres- 
ent from Leeds’’—as I looked at many and many a time 
at after. ‘‘Yo’re to lie still while Dr. Warbottom comes, 
because your arm’s broken, and father has sent a lad to 
fetch him. He found yo’ when he was goin’ to work, 
an’ carried you here on his back,’ sez she. ‘‘Oa!”’ sez 
I; an’ I shet my eyes, for I felt ashamed o’ mysen. 
‘‘Father’s gone to his work these three hours, an’ he 
said he’d tell ’°em to get somebody to drive the tram.” 
The clock ticked, an’ a bee comed in the house, an’ they 
rung 1’ my head like mill-wheels. An’ she give me 
another drink an’ settled the pillow. “Eh, but yo’re 
young to be getten drunk an’ such like, but yo’ won’t de 


154 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


it again, will yo’?”—“‘Noa,” sez I, “‘I wouldn’t if she’d 
not but stop they mill-wheels clatterin’.””’ 

‘Faith, it’s a good thing to be nursed by a woman 
when you’re sick!’ said Mulvaney. ‘Dir’ cheap at the 
price av twenty broken heads.’ 

Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had 
not been nursed by many women in his life. 

‘An’ then Dr. Warbottom comes ridin’ up, an’ Jesse 
Roantree along with ’im. He was a high-larned doctor, 
but he talked wi’ poor folk same as theirsens. ‘‘What’s 
ta big agaate on naa?’’ he sings out. ‘‘ Brekkin’ tha 
thick head?”’ An’ he felt me all ovver. ‘“‘That’s none 
broken. Tha’ nobbut knocked a bit sillier than ordi- 
nary, an’ that’s daaft eneaf.’’ An’ soa he went on, callin’ 
me all the names he could think on, but settin’ my arm, 
wi’ Jesse’s help, as careful as could be. ‘Yo’ mun let 
the big oaf bide here a bit, Jesse,’ he says, when he hed 
strapped me up an’ given me a dose 0’ physic; “‘an’ you 
an’ Liza will tend him, though he’s scarcelins worth the 
trouble. An’ tha’ll lose tha work,” sez he, ‘‘an’ tha’ll be 
upon th’ Sick Club for a couple o’ months an’ more. 
Doesn’t tha think tha’s a fool?””’ 

‘But whin was a young man, high or low, the other 
av a fool, I’d like to know?’ said Mulvaney. ‘Sure, 
folly’s the only safe way to wisdom, for I’ve thried 
it.’ 

‘Wisdom!’ grinned Ortheris, scanning his comrades 
with uplifted chin. ‘You’re bloomin’ Solomons, you 
two, ain’t you?’ 

Learoyd went calmly on, with a steady eye like an ox 
chewing the cud. 

‘And that was how I come to know ’Liza Roantree. 
There’s some tunes as she used to sing—aw, she were 
always singin’—that fetches Greenhow Hill before my 


ON GREENHOW HILL I55 


eyes as fair as yon brow across there. And she would 
learn me to sing bass, an’ I was to go to th’ chapel wi’ 
’em where Jesse and she led the singin’, th’ old man play- 
in’ the fiddle. He wasa strange chap, old Jesse, fair mad 
wi’ music, an’ he made me promise to learn the big fiddle 
when my arm was better. It belonged to him, and it 
stood up in a big case alongside o’ th’ eight-day clock, but 
Willie Satterthwaite, as played it in the chapel, had getten 
deaf as a door-post, and it vexed Jesse, as he had to rap 
him ower his head wi’ th’ fiddle-stick to make him give 
ower sawin’ at th’ right time. 

‘But there was a black drop in it all, an’ it was a man 
in a black coat that brought it. When th’ Primitive 
Methodist preacher came to Greenhow, he would always 
stop wi’ Jesse Roantree, an’ he laid hold of me from th’ 
beginning. It seemed I wor a soul to be saved, and he 
meaned todoit. Atth’ same time I jealoused ’at he were 
keen 0’ savin’ ’Liza Roantree’s soul as well, and I could 
ha’ killed him many a time. An’ this went on till one 
day I broke out, an’ borrowed th’ brass for a drink from 
"Liza. After fower days I come back, wi’ my tail be- 
tween my legs, just to see “Liza again. But Jesse were 
at home an’ th’ preacher—th’ Reverend Amos Barra- 
clough. ‘Liza said naught, but a bit o’ red come into 
her face as were white of a regular thing. Says Jesse, 
tryin’ his best to be civil, ‘‘ Nay, lad, it’s like this. You’ve 
getten to choose which way it’s goin’ to be. Tl ha’ 
nobody across ma doorstep as goes a-drinkin’, an’ bor- 
rows my lass’s money to spend i’ their drink. Ho’d 
tha tongue, ’Liza,” sez he, when she wanted to put in a 
word ’at I were welcome to th’ brass, and she were none 
afraid that I wouldn’t pay it back. Then the Reverend 
cuts in, seein’ as Jesse were losin’ his temper, an’ they 
fair beat me among them. But it were ’Liza, as looked 


156 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


an’ said naught, as did more than either o’ their tongues, 
an’ soa I concluded to get converted.’ 

‘Fwhat?’ shouted Mulvaney. Then, checking him- 
self, he said softly, ‘Let be! Let be! Sure the Blessed 
Virgin is the mother of all religion an’ most women; an’ 
there’s a dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let 
ut stay there. I’d ha’ been converted myself under the 
circumstances.’ 

‘Nay, but,’ pursued Learoyd with a blush, ‘I meaned 
iis 

Ortheris laughed as loudly as he dared, having regard 
to his business at the time. 

‘Ay, Ortheris, you may laugh, but you didn’t know 
yon preacher Barraclough—a little white-faced chap, wi’ 
a voice as ’ud wile a bird off an a bush, and a way 0’ 
layin’ hold of folks as made them think they’d never 
had a live man for a friend before. You never saw him, 
an’—an’—you never seed *Liza Roantree—never seed 
"Liza Roantree. . . . Happen it was as much ’Liza 
as th’ preacher and her father, but anyways they all 
meaned it, an’ I was fair shamed o’ mysen, an’ so I be- 
come what they call a changed character. And when I 
think on, it’s hard to believe as yon chap going to prayer- 
meetin’s, chapel, and class-meetin’s were me. But I 
never had naught to say for mysen, though there was a 
deal o’ shoutin’, and old Sammy Strother, as were almost 
clemmed to death and doubled up with the rheumatics, 
would sing out, “Joyful! Joyful!” and ’at it were better 
to go up to heaven in a coal-basket than down to hell ? 
a coach an’ six. And he would put his poor old claw on 
my shoulder, sayin’, “‘Doesn’t tha feel it, tha great lump? 
Doesn’t tha feel it?’’ An’ sometimes I thought I did, 
and then again I thought I didn’t, an’ how was that?’ 

‘The iverlastin’ nature av mankind,’ said Mulvaney. 


ON GREENHOW HILL 157 


‘An’, furthermore, I misdoubt you were built for the 
Primitive Methodians. They’re a new corps anyways. I 
hold by the Ould Church, for she’s the mother of them 
all—ay, an’ the father, too. I like her bekaze she’s most 
remarkable regimental in her fittings. I may die in 
Honolulu, Nova Zambra, or Cape Cayenne, but wherever 
I die, me bein’ fwhat I am, an’ a priest handy, I go under 
the same orders an’ the same words an’ the same unction 
as tho’ the Pope himself come down from the roof av 
St. Peter’s to see me off. There’s neither high nor low, 
nor broad nor deep, nor betwixt nor between wid her, an’ 
that’s what I like. But mark you, she’s no manner av 
Church for a wake man, bekaze she takes the body and 
the soul av him, onless he has his proper work to do. I 
remember when my father died that was three months 
comin’ to his grave; begad he’d ha’ sold the shebeen 
above our heads for ten minutes’ quittance of purgathory. 
An’ he did all he could. That’s why I say ut takes a 
strong man to deal with the Ould Church, an’ for that 
reason you'll find so many women go there. An’ that 
same’s a conundrum.’ 

‘Wot’s the use o’ worritin’ ’bout these things?’ said 
Ortheris. ‘°You’re bound to find all out quicker nor you 
want to, any’ow.’ He jerked the cartridge out of the 
breech-block into the palm of his hand. ‘’Ere’s my 
chaplain,’ he said, and made the venomous black-headed 
bullet bow like a marionette. ‘’E’s goin’ to teach a man 
all about which is which, an’ wot’s true, after all, before 
sundown. But wot ’appened after that, Jock?’ 

‘There was one thing they boggled at, and almost shut 
th’ gate i’ my face for, and that were my dog Blast, th’ 
only one saved out o’ a litter 0’ pups as was blowed up 
when a keg o’ minin’ powder loosed off in th’ store- 
keeper’s hut. They liked his name no better than his 


158 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


business, which were fightin’ every dog he comed across; 
a rare good dog, wi’ spots o’ black and pink on his face, 
one ear gone, and lame o’ one side wi’ being driven in a 
basket through an iron roof, a matter of half a mile. 

‘They said I mun give him up ’cause he were worldly 
and low; and would I let mysen be shut out of heaven 
for the sake on a dog? ‘‘Nay,” says I, “af th’ door isn’t 
wide enough for th’ pair on us, we'll stop outside, for 
we'll none be parted.”’ And th’ preacher spoke up for 
Blast, as had a likin’ for him from th’ first—I reckon 
that was why I come to like th’ preacher—and wouldn’t 
hear o’ changin’ his name to Bless, as some o’ them 
wanted. So th’ pair on us became reg’lar chapel- 
members. But it’s hard for a young chap o’ my build 
to cut traces from the world, th’ flesh, an’ the devil all 
uv aheap. Yet I stuck to it for a long time, while th’ 
lads as used to stand about th’ town-end an’ lean ower 
th’ bridge, spittin’ into th’ beck o’ a Sunday, would call 
after me, “Sitha, Learoyd, when’s ta bean to preach, 
*cause we're comin’ to hear tha.’”’—‘‘Ho’d tha jaw. He 
hasn’t getten th’ white choaker on ta morn,” another 
lad would say, and I had to double my fists hard i’ th’ 
bottom of my Sunday coat, and say to mysen, “‘If ’twere 
Monday and I warn’t a member o’ the Primitive Metho- 
dists, ?’d leather all th’ lot of yond’.” That was th’ 
hardest of all—to know that I could fight and I mustn’t 
fight.’ 

Sympathetic grunts from Mulvaney. 

‘So what wi’ singin’, practisin’, and class-meetin’s, and 
th’ big fiddle, as he made me take between my knees, I 
spent a deal o’ timei’ Jesse Roantree’s house-place. But 
often as I was there, th’ preacher fared to me to go oftener, 
and both th’ old man an’ th’ young woman were pleased 
to have him. He lived?’ Pately Brig, as were a goodish 


ON GREENHOW HILL 159 


step off, but he come. He come all the same. [I liked 
him as well or better as any man I’d ever seen i’ one 
way, and yet I hated him wi’ all my heart 1’ t’other, and 
we watched each other like cat and mouse, but civil as 
you please, for I was on my best behaviour, and he was 
that fair and open that I was bound to be fair with him. 
Rare good company he was, if I hadn’t wanted to wring 
his cliver little neck half of the time. Often and often 
when he was goin’ from Jesse’s I’d set him a bit on 
the road.’ 

‘See ’im ’ome, you mean?’ said Ortheris. 

‘Ay. It’s a way we have?’ Yorkshire o’ seein’ friends 
off. You wasa friend as I didn’t want to come back, and 
he didn’t want me to come back neither, and so we’d 
walk together towards Pately, and then he’d set me back 
again, and there we’d be wal two o’clock ?’ the mornin’ 
settin’ each other to an’ fro like a blasted pair o’ pen- 
dulums twixt hill and valley, long after th’ light had gone 
out i’ ’Liza’s window, as both on us had been looking at, 
pretending to watch the moon.’ 

‘Ah!’ broke in Mulvaney, ‘ye’d no chanst against the 
maraudin’ psalm-singer. They’ll take the airs an’ the 
graces instid av the man nine times out av ten, an’ 
they only find the blunder later—the wimmen.’ 

‘That’s just where yo’re wrong,’ said Learoyd, red- 
dening under the freckled tan of his cheeks. ‘I was th’ 
first wi’ "Liza, an’ yo’d think that were enough. But 
th’ parson were a steady-gaited sort o’ chap, and Jesse 
were strong 0’ his side, and all th’ women 1’ the congre- 
gation dinned it to "Liza ’at she were fair fond to take up 
wi’ a wastrel ne’er-do-weel like me, as was scarcelins 
respectable an’ a fighting dog at his heels. It was all 
very well for her to be doing me good and saving my 
soul, but she must mind as she didn’t do herself harm. 


160 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


They talk o’ rich folk bein’ stuck up an’ genteel, but for 
cast-iron pride o’ respectability there’s naught like poor 
chapel folk. It’s as cold as th’ wind o’ Greenhow Hill— 
ay, and colder, for ’twill never change. And now I 
come to think on it, one at strangest things I know is ’at 
they couldn’t abide th’ thought o’ soldiering. There’s a 
vast o’ fightin’ 7 th’ Bible, and there’s a deal of Metho- 
dists 1’ th’ army; but to hear chapel folk talk yo’d think 
that soldierin’ were next door, an’ t’other side, to hangin’. 
IT’ their meetin’s all their talk is o’ fightin’. When Sammy 
Strother were stuck for summat to say in his prayers, 
he’d sing out, “‘Th’ sword o’ th’ Lord and o’ Gideon.” 
They were allus at it about puttin’ on th’ whole armour 
o’ righteousness, an’ fightin’ the good fight o’ faith. And 
then, atop o’ ’t all, they held a prayer-meetin’ ower a 
young chap as wanted to ’list, and nearly deafened him, 
till he picked up his hat and fair ran away. And they’d 
tell tales in th’ Sunday-school o’ bad lads as had been 
thumped and brayed for bird-nesting o’ Sundays and 
playin’ truant o’ week-days, and how they took to 
wrestlin’, dog-fightin’, rabbit-runnin’, and drinkin’, 
till at last, as if ’twere a hepitaph on a gravestone, they 
damned him across th’ moors wi’, “‘an’ then he went and 
listed for a soldier,” an’ they’d all fetch a deep breath, 
and throw up their eyes like a hen drinkin’.’ 

‘Fwhy is ut?’ said Mulvaney, bringing down his 
hand on his thigh with a crack. ‘In the name av God, 
fwhy is ut? Ive seen ut, tu. They cheat an’ they 
swindle an’ they lie an’ they slander, an’ fifty things 
fifty times worse; but the last an’ the worst by their 
reckonin’ is to serve the Widdy honest. It’s like the 
talk av childher—seein’ things all round.’ 

‘Plucky lot of fightin’ good fights of whatsername 
they’d do if we didn’t see they had a quiet place to fight 


ON GREENHOW HILL 161 


in. And such fightin’ as theirs is! Cats on the tiles. 
T’other callin’ to which to come on. Id give a month’s 
pay to get some o’ them broad-backed beggars in London 
sweatin’ through a day’s road-makin’ an’ a night’s rain. 
They’d carry on a deal afterwards—same as we’re sup- 
posed to carry on. I’ve bin turned out of a measly arf- 
license pub down Lambeth way, full o’ greasy kebmen, 
fore now,’ said Ortheris with an oath. 

‘Maybe you were dhrunk,’ said Mulvaney soothingly. 

‘Worse nor that. The Forders were drunk. J was 
wearin’ the Queen’s uniform.’ 

‘I'd no particular thought to be a soldier 7 them 
days,’ said Learoyd, still keeping his eye on the bare hill 
opposite, ‘but this sort o’ talk put it’? my head. They 
was so good, th’ chapel folk, that they tumbled ower 
t’other side. But I stuck to it for ’Liza’s sake, specially 
as she was learning me to sing the bass part in a horo- 
torio as Jesse were gettin’ up. She sung like a throstle 
hersen, and we had practisin’s night after night for a 
matter of three months.’ 

‘I know what a horotorio is,’ said Ortheris pertly. 
‘It’s a sort of chaplain’s sing-song—words all out of the 
Bible, and hullabaloojah choruses.’ 

‘Most Greenhow Hill folks played some instrument 
or t’other, an’ they all sung so you might have heard them 
miles away, and they were so pleased wi’ the noise they 
made they didn’t fair to want anybody to listen. The 
preacher sung high seconds when he wasn’t playin’ the 
flute, an’ they set me, as hadn’t got far with big fiddle, 
again Willie Satterthwaite, to jog his elbow when he had 
to get a’ gate playin’. Old Jesse was happy if ever a 
man was, for he were th’ conductor an’ th’ first fiddle an’ 
th’ leadin’ singer, beatin’ time wi’ his fiddle-stick, till at 
times he’4 rap with it on the table, and cry out, “‘Now, 


162 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


you mun all stop; it’s my turn.” And he’d face round 
to his front, fair sweating wi’ pride, to sing th’ tenor 
solos. But he were grandest i’ th’ choruses, waggin’ his 
head, flinging his arms round like a windmill, and singin’ 
hisself black in the face. A rare singer were Jesse. 

‘Yo’ see, I was not o’ much account wi’ ’em all ex- 
ceptin’ to Liza Roantree, and I had a deal o’ time settin’ 
quiet at meetings and horotorio practises to hearken their 
talk, and if it were strange to me at beginnin’, it got 
stranger still at after, when I was shut on it, and could 
study what it meaned. 

‘Just after th’ horotorios come off, "Liza, as had allus 
been weakly like, was took very bad. I walked Dr. 
Warbottom’s horse up and down a deal of times while he 
were inside, where they wouldn’t let me go, though I fair 
ached to see her. 

‘**She’1! be better 1’ noo, lad—better 1’ noo,” he used 
to say. ‘‘Ita mun ha’ patience.” Then they said if I 
was quiet I mig::t go in, and th’ Reverend Amos Barra- 
clough used to read to her lyin’ propped up among th’ 
pillows. Then she began to mend a bit, and they let 
me carry her on to th’ settle, and when it got warm again 
she went about same as afore. ‘Th’ preacher and me and 
Blast was a deal together ” them days, and 1 one way 
we was rare 200d comrades. But I could ha’ stretched 
him time and again with a good will. I mind one day 
he said he wouid like to go down into th’ bowels o’ th’ 
earth, and see how th’ Lord had builded th’ framework o’ 
th’ everlastin’ hills. He were one of them chats as had 
a gift o’ sayin’ things. They rolled off the tip of his 
clever tongue, same as Mulvaney here, as would ha’ made 
a rare good preacher if he had nobbut given his mind 
to it. I lent him a suit o’ miner’s kit as almost buried 
th’ little man, and his white face down i’ th’ coat-collar 


ON GREENHOW HILL 163 


and hat-flap looked like the face of a boggart, and he 
cowered down 1’ th’ bottom o’ the waggon. I was drivin’ 
a tram as led up a bit of an incline up to th’ cave where 
the engine was pumpin’, and where th’ ore was brought 
up and put into th’ waggons as went down o’ themselves, 
me puttin’ th’ brake on and th’ horses a-trottin’ after. 
Long as it was daylight we were good friends, but when 
we got fair into th’ dark, and could nobbut see th’ day 
shinin’ at the hole like a lamp at a street-end, I feeled 
downright wicked. Ma religion dropped all away from 
me when I looked back at him as were always comin’ 
between me and ’Liza. The talk was ’at they were to be 
wed when she got better, an’ I couldn’t get her to say 
yes or nay to it. He began to sing a hymn in his thin 
voice, and I came out wi’ a chorus that was all cussin’ 
an’ swearin’ at my horses, an’ I began to know how I 
hated him. He were such a little chap, too. I could 
drop him wi’ one hand down Garstang’s Copper-hole— 
a place where th’ beck slithered ower th’ edge on a rock, 
and fell wi’ a bit of a whisper into a pit as no rope ? 
Greenhow could plump.’ 

Again Learoyd rooted up the innocent violets. ‘Ay, 
he should see th’ bowels o’ th’ earth an’ never naught 
else. I could take him a mile or two along th’ drift, and 
leave him wi’ his candle doused to cry hallelujah, wi’ 
none to hear him and say amen. I was to lead him 
down th’ ladder-way to th’ drift where Jesse Roantree 
was workin’, and why shouldn’t he slip on th’ ladder, wi’ 
my feet on his fingers till they loosed grip, and I put him 
down wi’ my heel? If I went fust down th’ ladder I 
could click hold on him and chuck him over my head, 
so as he should go squshin’ down the shaft, breakin’ his 
bones at ev’ry timberin’ as Bill Appleton did when he was 
fresh, and hadn’t a bone’ left when he wrought to th’ 


164 LIFE’S HANDICAP | 


bottom. Nivera blasted leg to walk from Pately. Niver 
an arm to put round ’Liza Roantree’s waist. Niver no 
more—niver no more.’ 

The thick lips curled back over the yellow teeth, and 
that flushed face was not pretty to look upon. Mulvaney 
nodded sympathy, and Ortheris, moved by his comrade’s 
passion, brought up the rifle to his shoulder, and searched 
the hillside for his quarry, muttering ribaldry about a 
sparrow, a spout, and a thunder-storm. The voice of 
the watercourse supplied the necessary small talk till 
Learoyd picked up his story. 

‘But it’s none so easy to kill a man like yon. When 
I’d given up my horses to th’ lad as took my place 
and I was showin’ th’ preacher th’ workin’s, shoutin’ 
into his ear across th’ clang o’ th’ pumpin’ engines, I saw 
he were afraid o’ naught; and when the lamplight showed 
his black eyes, I could feel as he was masterin’ me again. 
I were no better nor Blast chained up short and growlin’ 
1’ the depths of him while a strange dog went safe past. 

‘““Th’art a coward and a fool,” I said to mysen; an’ 
I wrestled i? my mind again’ him till, when we come to 
Garstang’s Copper-hole, I laid hold o’ the preacher and 
lifted him up over my head and held him into the darkest 
on it. ‘Now, lad,” I says “it’s to be one or t’other on 
‘us—thee or me—for ’Liza Roantree. Why, isn’t thee 
afraid for thysen?”’ I says, for he were still i’ my arms as 
asack. ‘‘Nay; I’m but afraid for thee, my poor lad, as 
knows naught,” says he. I set him down on th’ edge, 
an’ th’ beck run stiller, an’ there was no more buzzin’ 
in my head like when th’ bee come through th’ window 
0’ Jesse’s house. ‘‘What dost tha mean?” says I. 

‘““[ve often thought as thou ought to know,” says he, 
“but ’twas hard to tell thee. *Liza Roantree’s for nei- 
ther on us, nor for nobody o’ this earth. Dr. Warbottom 


ON GREENHOW HILL 165 


says—and he knows her, and her mother before her— 
that she is in a decline, and she cannot live six months 
longer. He’s known it for many a day. Steady, John! 
Steady!” says he. And that weak little man pulled 
me further back and set me again’ him, and talked it all 
over quiet and still, me turnin’ a bunch o’ candles in my 
hand, and counting them ower and ower again as [I lis- 
tened. A deal on it were th’ regular preachin’ talk, but 
there were a vast lot as made me begin to think as he 
were more of a man than I’d ever given him credit for, 
till I were cut as deep for him as I were for mysen. 

‘Six candles we had, and we crawled and climbed all 
that day while they lasted, and I said to mysen, “ ’Liza 
Roantree hasn’t six months to live.” And when we came 
into th’ daylight again we were like dead men to look at, 
an’ Blast come behind us without so much as waggin’ his 
tail. When I saw ’Liza again she looked at me a minute 
and says, ““Who’stelled tha? ForIseethaknows.” An¢ 
she tried to smile as she kissed me, and I fair broke down. 

‘Yo’ see, I was a young chap i’ them days, and had 
seen naught o’ life, let alone death, as is allus a-waitin’. 
She telled me as Dr. Warbottom said as Greenhow air 
was too keen, and they were goin’ to Bradford, to Jesse’s 
brother David, as worked 7’ a mill, and I mun hold up 
like a man and a Christian, and she’d pray forme. Well, 
and they went away, and the preacher that same back 
end o’ th’ year were appointed to another circuit, as they 
call it, and I were left alone on Greenhow Hill. 

‘I tried, and I tried hard, to stick to th’ chapel, but 
’tweren’t th’ same thing at after. I hadn’t ’Liza’s voice 
to follow i’ th’ singin’, nor her eyes a-shinin’ acrost their 
heads. Andi’ th’ class-meetings they said as I mun have\ 
some experiences to tell, and I hadn’t a word to say for 
mysen. 


166 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Blast and me moped a good deal, and happen we 
didn’t behave ourselves over well, for they dropped us 
and wondered however they’d come to take us up. I 
can’t tell how we got through th’ time, while i’ th’ winter 
I gave up my job and went to Bradford. Old Jesse were 
at th’ door o’ th’ house, in a long street o’ little houses. 
He’d been sendin’ th’ children ’way as were clatterin’ 
their clogs in th’ causeway, for she were asleep. 

‘“Ts it thee?” he says; ‘‘but you’re not to see her. 
T’ll none have her wakened for a nowt like thee. She’s 
goin’ fast, and she mun go in peace. Thou’lt never be 
good for naught i’ th’ world, and as long as thou lives 
thou’ll never play the big fiddle. Get away, lad, get 
away!’ So he shut the door softly ? my face. 

‘Nobody never made Jesse my master, but it seemed 
to me he was about right, and I went away into the town 
and knocked up against a recruiting sergeant. The old 
tales o’ th’ chapel folk came buzzin’ into my head. I 
was to get away, and this were th’ regular road for the 
likes o’ me. I ‘listed there and then, took th’ Widow’s 
shillin’, and had a bunch o’ ribbons pinned 1’ my hat. 

‘But next day I found my way to David Roantree’s 
door, and Jesse came to openit. Says he, ‘‘Thou’s come 
back again wi’ th’ devil’s colours flyin’—thy true colours, 
as I always telled thee.” 

‘But I begged and prayed of him to let me see her 
nobbut to say good-bye, till a woman calls down th’ 
stairway, ‘‘She says John Learoyd’s to come up.” Th’ 
old man shifts aside in a flash, and lays his hand on my 
arm, quite gentle like. “But thou’lt be quiet, John,” 
says he, ‘‘for she’s rare and weak. Thou was allus a 
good lad.” 

‘Her eyes were all alive wi’ light, and her hair was 
thick on the pillow round her, but her cheeks were thitt 


ON GREENHOW HILL 167 


—thin to frighten a man that’s strong. ‘‘Nay, father, 
yo mayn’t say th’ devil’s colours. Them ribbons is 
pretty.” An’ she held out her hands for th’ hat, an’ she 
put all straight as a woman will wi’ ribbons. ‘‘Nay, but 
what they’re pretty,” she says. ‘Eh, but I’d ha’ liked to 
see thee i’ thy red coat, John, for thou was allus my own 
lad—my very own lad, and none else.” 

‘She lifted up her arms, and they come round my 
neck i’ a gentle grip, and they slacked away, and she 
seemed fainting. ‘‘Now yo’ mun get away, lad,” says 
Jesse, and I picked up my hat and I came downstairs. 

‘Th’ recruiting sergeant were waitin’ for me at th’ 
corner public-house. ‘‘Yo’ve seen your sweetheart?” 
says he. ‘Yes, I’ve seen her,” says I. ‘Well, we'll 
have a quart now, and you'll do your best to forget her,” 
says he, bein’ one o’ them smart, bustlin’ chaps. ‘‘Ay, 
sergeant,” says I. ‘Forget her.’ And I’ve been for- 
gettin’ her ever since.’ 

He threw away the wilted clump of white violets as 
he spoke. Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle 
at his shoulder, and peered across the valley in the clear 
afternoon light. His chin cuddled the stock, and there 
was a twitching of the muscles of the right cheek as he 
sighted; Private Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his 
business. A speck of white crawled up the watercourse. 

soeethat beggar? . . . Got ’im.’ 

Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred 
down the hillside, the deserter of the Aurangabadis 
pitched forward, rolled down a red rock, and lay very 
still, with his face in a clump of blue gentians, while a big 
raven flapped out of the pine wood to make investiga- 
tion. 

‘That’s a clean shot, little man,’ said Mulvaney. 

Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away. 


168 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Happen there was a lass tewed up wi’ him, too,’ said 
he. 

Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the 
valley, with the smile of the artist who looks on the 
completed work. 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


The Earth gave up her dead that tide, 
Into our camp he came, 

And said his say, and went his way, 
And left our hearts aflame. 


Keep tally—on the gun-butt score 
The vengeance we must take, 
When God shall bring full reckoning, 
For our dead comrade’s sake. 
Ballad. 


LET it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delight- 
ful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he 
is charming. It is only when he insists upon being 
treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of 
the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial 
anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never 
knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next. 
Dirkovitch was a Russian—a Russian of the Russians 
—who appeared to get his bread by serving the Czar as 
an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a 
Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice 
alike. He was a handsome young Oriental, fond of wan- 
dering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he 
arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least 
no living man could ascertain whether it was by way of 
Balkh, Badakshan, Chitral, Beluchistan, or Nepaul, or 
anywhere else. The Indian Government, being in an 
unusually affable mood, gave orders that he was to be 
169 


170 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


civilly treated and shown everything that was to be seen. 
So he drifted, talking bad English and worse French, from 
one city to another, till he foregathered with Her Maj- 
esty’s White Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which 
stands at the mouth of that narrow swordcut in the hills 
that men call the Khyber Pass. He was undoubtedly 
an officer, and he was decorated after the manner of the 
Russians with little enamelled crosses, and he could talk, 
and (though this has nothing to do with his merits) he 
had been given up as a hopeless task, or cask, by the 
Black Tyrone, who individually and collectively, with 
hot whisky and honey, mulled brandy, and mixed spirits 
of every kind, had striven in all hospitality to make him 
drunk. And when the Black Tyrone, who are exclu- 
sively Irish, fail to disturb the peace of head of a foreigner 
—that foreigner is certain to be a superior man. 

The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing 
their wine as in charging the enemy. All that they 
possessed, including some wondrous brandy, was placed at 
the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he enjoyed him- 
self hugely—even more than among the Black Tyrones. 

But he remained distressingly European through it all. 
The White Hussars were ‘My dear true friends,’ ‘ Fellow- 
soldiers glorious,’ and ‘Brothers inseparable.’ He would 
unburden himself by the hour on the glorious future that 
awaited the combined arms of England and Russia when 
their hearts and their territories should run side by side 
and the great mission of civilising Asia should begin. 
That was unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be 
civilised after the methods of the West. There is too 
much Asia and she is too old. You cannot reform a 
lady of many lovers, and Asia has been insatiable in her 
flirtations aforetime. She will never attend Sunday- 
school or learn to vote save with swords for tickets. 


THE MAN WHO WAS 171 


Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it 
suited him to talk special-correspondently and to make 
himself as genial as he could. Now and then he volun- 
teered a little, a very little, information about his own 
sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look after them- 
selves somewhere at the back of beyond. He had done 
rough work in Central Asia, and had seen rather more 
help-yourself fighting than most men of his years. But 
he was careful never to betray his superiority, and more 
than careful to praise on all occasions the appearance, 
drill, uniform, and organisation of Her Majesty’s White 
Hussars. And indeed they were a regiment to be ad- 
mired. When Lady Durgan, widow of-the late Sir John 
Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a short time 
had been proposed to by every single man at mess, she 
put the public sentiment very neatly when she explained 
that they were all so nice that unless she could marry 
them all, including the colonel and some majors already 
married, she was not going to content herself with one 
hussar. Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle 
regiment, being by nature contradictious; and the White 
Hussars were going to wear crape on their arms, but 
compromised by attending the wedding in full force, 
and lining the aisle with unutterable reproach. She 
had jilted them all—from Basset-Holmer the senior 
captain to little Mildred the junior subaltern, who 
could have given her four thousand a year and a 
title. 

The only persons who did not share the general regard 
for the White Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of 
Jewish extraction who lived across the border, and 
answered to the name of Pathan. They had once met 
the regiment officially and for something less than twenty 
minutes, but the interview, which was complicated with 


172 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


many casualties, had filled them with prejudice. They 
even called the White Hussars children of the devil and 
sons of persons whom it would be perfectly impossible to 
meet in decent society. Yet they were not above making 
their aversion fill their money-belts. The regiment 
possessed carbines—beautiful Martini-Henri carbines 
that would lob a bullet into an enemy’s camp at one 
thousand yards, and were even handier than the long 
rifle. ‘Therefore they were coveted all along the border, 
and since demand inevitably breeds supply, they were 
supplied at the risk of life and limb for exactly their 
weight in coined silver—seven and one-half pounds 
weight of rupees, or sixteen pounds sterling reckoning 
the rupee at par. They were stolen at night by snaky- 
haired thieves who crawled on their stomachs under the 
nose of the sentries; they disappeared mysteriously from 
locked arm-racks, and in the hot weather, when all the 
barrack doors and windows were open, they vanished like 
puffs of their own smoke. The border people desired 
them for family vendettas and contingencies. But in 
the long cold nights of the northern Indian winter they 
were stolen most extensively. The traffic of murder 
was liveliest among the hills at that season, and prices 
ruled high. The regimental guards were first doubled 
and then trebled. A trooper does not much care if he 
loses a weapon—Government must make it good—but 
he deeply resents the loss of his sleep. The regiment 
grew very angry, and one rifle-thief bears the visible 
marks of their anger upon him to this hour. That 
incident stopped the burglaries for a time, and the guards 
were reduced accordingly, and the regiment devoted itself 
to polo with unexpected results; for it beat by two goals 
to one that very terrible polo corps the Lushkar Light 
Horse, though the latter had four ponies apiece for a 


THE MAN WHO WAS 173 


short hour’s fight, as well as a native officer who played 
like a lambent flame across the ground. 

They gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The 
Lushkar team came, and Dirkovitch came, in the fullest 
full uniform of a Cossack officer, which is as full as a 
dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and 
opened his eyes as he regarded. They were lighter 
men than the Hussars, and they carried themselves 
with the swing that is the peculiar right of the Punjab 
Frontier Force and all Irregular Horse. Like every- 
thing else in the Service it has to be learnt, but, unlike 
many things, it is never forgotten, and remains on the 
body till death. 

The great beam-roofed mess-room of the White 
Hussars was a sight to be remembered. All the mess 
plate was out on the long table—the same table that had 
served up the bodies of five officers after a forgotten 
fight long and long ago—the dingy, battered standards 
faced the door of entrance, clumps of winter-roses lay 
between the silver candlesticks, and the portraits of 
eminent efficers deceased looked down on their suc- 
cessors from between the heads of sambhur, nilghai, 
markhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning snow- 
leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months’ 
leave that he might have spent in England, instead of on 
the road to Thibet and the daily risk of his life by ledge, 
snow-slide, and grassy slope. 

The servants in spotless white muslin and the crest 
of their regiments on the brow of their turbans waited 
behind their masters, who were clad in the scarlet and 
gold of the White Hussars, and the cream and silver of 
the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch’s dull green 
uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his 
big onyx eyes made up for it. He was fraternising ef- 


174 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


fusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was 
wondering how many of Dirkovitch’s Cossacks his own 
dark wiry down-countrymen could account for in a fair 
charge. But one does not speak of these things openly. 

The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental 
band played between the courses, as is the immemorial 
custom, till all tongues ceased for a moment with the 
removal of the dinner-slips and the first toast of obli- 
gation, when an officer rising said, ‘Mr. Vice, the Queen,’ 
and little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, 
‘The Queen, God bless her,’ and the big spurs clanked as 
the big men heaved themselves up and drank the Queen 
upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to settle 
their mess-bills. That Sacrament of the Mess never 
grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the 
throat of the listener wherever he be by sea or by land. 
Dirkovitch rose with his ‘brothers glorious,’ but he could 
not understand. No one but an officer can tell what the 
toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than 
comprehension. Immediately after the little silence that 
follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer 
who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not, 
of course, eat with the mess, but he came in at dessert, 
all six feet of him, with the blue and silver turban atop, 
and the big black boots below. ‘The mess rose joyously 
as he thrust forward the hilt of his sabre in token of 
fealty for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, 
and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of: ‘Rung. 
ho, Hira Singh!’ (which being translated means ‘Go in 
and win’). ‘Did I whack you over the knee, old man?’ 
‘Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil made you play that 
kicking pig of a pony in the last ten minutes?’ ‘Skabash, 
Ressaidar Sahib!’ Then the voice of the colonel, ‘The 
health of Ressaidar Hira Singh!’ 


THE MAN WHO WAS 175 


After the shouting had died away Hira Singh rose 
to reply, for he was the cadet of a royal house, the son 
of a king’s son, and knew what was due on these oc- 
casions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:—‘ Colonel 
Sahib and officers of this regiment. Much honour 
have you done me. This will I remember. We came 
down from afar to play you. But we were beaten.’ 
(‘No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our 
own ground y'know. Your ponies were cramped from 
the railway. Don’t apologise!’) ‘Therefore perhaps 
we will come again if it be so ordained.’ (‘Hear! Hear! 
Hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!’) ‘Then we will play 
you afresh’ (‘Happy to meet you.’) ‘till there are left 
no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for sport.’ He 
dropped one hand on his sword-hilt and his eye wandered 
to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. ‘But if by the 
will of God there arises any other game which is not 
the polo game, then be assured, Colonel Sahib and 
officers, that we will play it out side by side, though 
they,’ again his eye sought Dirkovitch, ‘though they 
I say have fifty ponies to our one horse.’ And with 
a deep-mouthed Rung ho! that sounded like a mus- 
ket-butt on flagstones he sat down amid leaping 
glasses. 

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the 
brandy—the terrible brandy aforementioned—did not 
understand, nor did the expurgated translations offered 
to him at all convey the point. Decidedly Hira Singh’s 
was the speech of the evening, and the clamour might 
have continued to the dawn had it not been broken py 
the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling 
at his defenceless left side. Then there was a scuffle and 
« yell of pain. 

‘Carbine-stealing again!’ said the adjutant, calmly 


176 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


sinking back in his chair. ‘This comes of reducing the 
guards. I hope the sentries have killed him.’ 

The feet of armed men pounded on the verandah flags, 
and it was as though something was being dragged. 

‘Why don’t they put him in the cells till the morn- 
ing?’ said the colonel testily. ‘See if they’ve damaged 
him, sergeant.’ 

The mess sergeant fled out into the darkness and 
returned with two troopers and a corporal, all very much 
perplexed. 

‘Caught a man stealin’ carbines, sir,’ said the corporal. 
‘Leastways ’e was crawlin’ towards the barricks, sir, past 
the main road sentries, an’ the sentry ’e sez, sir d 

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men 
groaned. Never was seen so destitute and demoralised 
an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked with 
dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh 
started slightly at the sound of the man’s pain. Dirko- 
vitch took another glass of brandy. 

‘What does the sentry say?’ said the colonel. 

‘Sez ’e speaks English, sir,’ said the corporal. 

‘So you brought him into mess instead of handing 
him over to the sergeant! If he spoke all the Tongues of 
the Pentecost you’ve no business ' 

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little 
Mildred had risen from his place to inspect. He jumped 
back as though he had been shot. 

‘Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men 
away, said he to the colonel, for he was a much privileged 
subaltern. He put his arms round the ragbound horror 
as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may not 
have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay 
in his being six feet four and big in proportion. The 
corporal seeing that an officer was disposed to look after 








THE MAN WHO WAS 177 


the capture, and that the colonel’s eye was beginning to 
blaze, promptly removed himself and his men. The 
mess was left alone with the carbine-thief, who laid his 
head on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and 
inconsolably, as little children weep. . 

Hira Singh leapt to his feet. ‘Colonel Sahib,’ said 
he, ‘that man is no Afghan, for they weep Az! Az/ 
Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep Oh! Ho! He 
weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say Ow / 
Ow!’ 

‘Now where the dickens did. you get that knowl- 
edge, Hira Singh?’ said the captain of the Lushkar 
team. 

‘Hear him!’ said Hira Singh simply, pointing at 
the crumpled figure that wept as though it would never 
cease. | 

‘He said, ‘‘My God!’’’ said little Mildred. ‘I heard 
him say it.’ 

The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man 
in silence. It is a horrible thing to hear a mancry. A 
woman can sob from the top of her palate, or her lips, 
or anywhere else, but a man must cry from his diaphragm, 
and it rends him to pieces. 

‘Poor devil!’ said the colonel, coughing tremendously. 
‘We ought to send him to hospital. He’s been man- 
handled.’ 

Now the adjutant loved his carbines. They were 
to him as his grandchildren, the men standing in the 
first place. He grunted rebelliously: ‘I can understand 
an Afghan stealing, because he’s built that way. But 
I can’t understand his crying. ‘That makes it worse.’ 

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he 
lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There 
was nothing special in the ce‘ling beyond a shadow 


178 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity 
in the construction of the mess-room this shadow was 
always thrown when the candles were lighted. It 
never disturbed the digestion of the White Hussars. 
They were in fact rather proud of it. 

‘Is he going to cry all night?’ said the colonel, ‘or 
are we supposed to sit up with little Mildred’s guest 
until he feels better?’ 

The man in the chair threw up his head and stared 
at the mess. ‘Oh, my God!’ he said, and every soul 
in the mess rose to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain 
did a deed for which he ought to have been given the 
Victoria Cross—distinguished gallantry in a fight against 
overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his 
eyes as the hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune 
moment, and pausing only by the colonel’s chair to say, 
‘This isn’t our affair, you know, sir,’ led them into the 
verandah and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last to 
go, and he looked at Dirkovitch. But Dirkovitch had 
departed into a brandy-paradise of his own. His lips 
roved without sound and he was studying the coffin on 
the ceiling. 

‘White—white all over,’ said Basset-Holmer, the 
adjutant. ‘What a pernicious renegade he must be! 
IT wonder where he came from?’ 

The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and 
‘Who are you?’ said he. 

There was no answer. The man stared round the 
mess-room and smiled in the colonel’s face. Little 
Mildred, who was always more of a woman than a man 
till ‘Boot and saddle’ was sounded, repeated the question 
in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a 
geyser. The man only smiled. Dirkovitch at the far 
end of the table slid gently from his chair to the floor. 


THE MAN WHO WAS 279 


No son of Adam in this present imperfect world can mix 
the Hussars’ champagne with the Hussars’ brandy by five 
and eight glasses of each without remembering the pit 
whence he was digged and descending thither. The 
band began to play the tune with which the White Hus- 
sars from the date of their formation have concluded all 
their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than 
abandon that tune; it is a part of their system. The 
man straightened himself in his chair and drummed on 
the table with his fingers. 

‘I don’t see why we should entertain lunatics,’ said 
the colonel. ‘Call a guard and send him off to the cells. 
We'll look into the business in the morning. Give hima 
glass of wine first though.’ 

Little Mildred filled a sherry-glass with the brandy 
and thrust it over to the man. He drank, and the tune 
rose louder, and he straightened himself yet more. Then 
he put out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate 
opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery 
connected with that piece of plate, in the shape of a 
spring which converted what was a seven-branched 
candlestick, three springs on each side and one in the 
middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He 
found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly. He 
rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, 
then moved on to another picture, the mess watching him 
without a word. When he came to the mantelpiece 
he shook his head and seemed distressed. A piece of 
plate representing a mounted hussar in full uniform 
caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the man- 
telpiece with inquiry in his eyes. 

‘What is it—Oh what is it?’ said little Mildred. Then 
as a mother might speak to a child, ‘That is a horse. 
Yes, a horse.’ 


180 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Very slowly came the answer in a thick, passionless 
guttural—‘ Yes, I—have seen. But—where is the horse?’ 
You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating 
as the men drew back to give the stranger full room in his 
wanderings. ‘There was no question of calling the guard. 

Again he spoke—very slowly, ‘Where is our horse?’ 

There is but one horse in the White Hussars, and 
his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess-room. 
He is the piebald drum-horse, the king of the regimental 
band, that served the regiment for seven-and-thirty 
years, and in the end was shot for old age. Half the 
mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it 
into the man’s hands. He placed it above the mantel- 
piece, it clattered on the ledge as his poor hands dropped 
it, and he staggered towards the bottom of the table, 
falling into Mildred’s chair. Then all the men spoke to 
one another something after this fashion, ‘The drum- 
horse hasn’t hung over the mantelpiece since ’67.’ 
‘How does he know?’ ‘Mildred, go and speak to him 
again.’ ‘Colonel, what are you going to do?’ ‘Oh, 
dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself 
together.’ ‘It isn’t possible anyhow, The man’s a 
lunatic.’ 

Little Mildred stood at the colonel’s side talking in his 
ear. ‘Will you be good enough to take your seats please, 
gentlemen!’ he said, and the mess dropped into the chairs. 
Only Dirkovitch’s seat, next to little Mildred’s, was 
blank, and little Mildred himself had found Hira Singh’s 
place. The wide-eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses 
in deep silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his 
hand shook and the port spilled on the table as he looked 
straight at the man in little Mildred’s chair and said 
hoarsely, ‘Mr. Vice, the Queen.’ There wasa little pause, 
but the man sprung to his feet and answered without hesi-< 


THE MAN WHO WAS 181 


tation, ‘The Queen, God bless her!’ and as he emptied 
the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers.. 

Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a 
young woman and there were no unclean ideals in the 
land, it was the custom of a few messes to drink the 
Queen’s toast in broken glass, to the vast delight of the 
mess-contractors. ‘The custom is now dead, because 
there is nothing to break anything for, except now and 
again the word of a Government, and that has been bro- 
ken already. 

‘That settles it,’ said the colonel, with a gasp. ‘He’s 
notasergeant. What in the world is he?’ 

The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of 
questions would have scared anyman. It wasno wonder 
that the ragged, filthy invader could only smile and shake 
his head. 

From under the table, calm and smiling, rose Dirko- 
vitch, who had been roused from healthful slumber by 
feet upon his body. By the side of the man he rose, 
and the man shrieked and grovelled. It was a horrible 
sight coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the 
toast that had brought the strayed wits together. 

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but little 
Mildred heaved him up in an instant. It is not good 
that a gentleman who can answer to the Queen’s toast 
should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks. 

The hasty action tore the wretch’s upper clothing 
nearly to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry 
black scars. There is only one weapon in the world that 
cuts: in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the 
cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his 
eyes dilated. Also his face changed. He said something 
that sounded like Shio ve iakete, and the man fawning an- 
swered, Chetyre. 


382 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


“What’s that?’ said everybody together. 

‘His number. That is number four, youknow.’ Dirko- 
vitch spoke very thickly. 

“What has a Queen’s officer to do with a qualified num- 
ber?’ said the Colonel, and an unpleasant growl ran 
round the table. 

“How can I tell?’ said the affable Oriental with a sweet 
smile. ‘He is a—how you have it?—escape—run-a-way, 
from over there.’ He nodded towards the darkness of 
the night. 

‘Speak to him if he’ll answer you, and speak to him 
gently,’ said little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. 
It seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch 
should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Rus- 
sian to the creature who answered so feebly and with 
such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to 
understand no one said a word. All breathed heavily, 
leaning forward, in the long gaps of the conversation. 
The next time that they have no engagements on hand 
the White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg in a 
body to learn Russian. 

‘He does not know how many years ago,’ said Dirko- 
vitch, facing the mess, ‘but he says it was very long ago 
ina war. I think that there was an accident. He says 
he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the 
war.’ | 

‘The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!’ said 
little Mildred, and the adjutant dashed off bare-headed to 
the orderly-room, where the muster-rolls of the regiment 
were kept. He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch 
conclude, ‘Therefore, my dear friends, Iam most sorry to 
say there was an accident which would have been repa- 
rable if he had apologised to that our colonel, which he 
had insulted.’ 


THE MAN WHO WAS 183 


Then followed another growl which the colonel tried 
to beat down. The mess was in no mood just then to 
weigh insults to Russian colonels. 

‘He does not remember, but I think that there was 
an accident, and so he was not exchanged among the 
prisoners, but he was sent to another place—how do you 
say?—the country. So, he says, he came here. He does 
not know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany’— 
the man caught the word, nodded, and shivered—‘at 
Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I cannot understand how he 
escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for 
many years, but how many years he has forgotten—that 
with many things. It was an accident; done because he 
did not apologise to that our colonel. Ah!’ 

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch’s sigh of regret, it is sad 
to record that the White Hussars livelily exhibited un- 
Christian delight and other emotions, hardly restrained 
by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed 
and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men 
flung themselves at these. 

‘Steady! Fifty-six—fifty-five—fifty-four,’ said Hol- 
mer. ‘Here we are. “Lieutenant Austin Limmason. 
Missing.” ‘That was before Sebastopol. What an 
infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was 
quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.’ 

‘But he never apologised. Said he’d see him damned 
first,’ chorused the mess. 

‘Poor chap! I suppose he never had the chance after- 
wards. How did he come here?’ said the colonel. 

The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer. 

‘Do you know who you are?’ 

Tt laughed weakly. 

‘T)o you know that you are Limmason—-Lieutenant 
Limmason of the White Hussars?’ 


184 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly 
surprised tone, ‘Yes, I’m Limmason, of course.’ ‘The 
light died out in his eyes, and the man collapsed, watch- 
ing every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight 
from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, 
but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought. 
The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon, 
he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of 
what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He 
cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had 
pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture 
of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the 
Queen. ‘The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian 
tongue could only in part remove. His head bowed on 
his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately. 

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dir- 
kovitch at this extremely inopportune moment to 
make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped 
the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and 
began: 

‘Fellow-soldiers glorious—true friends and hospitables. 
It was an accident, and deplorable—most deplorable.’ 
Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess. ‘But you 
will think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not? 
The Czar! Posh! Islap my fingers—I snap my fingers 
at him. Do I believe in him? No! But im us Slav 
who has done nothing, him I believe. Seventy—how 
much—millions peoples that have done nothing—not 
one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode.’ He 
banged a hand on the table. ‘Hear you, old peoples, 
we have done nothing in the world—out here. All 
our work is to do; and it shall be done, old peoples. 
Get a-way!’ He waved his hand imperiously, and 
pointed to the man. ‘You see him. He is not good to 


THE MAN WHO WAS 185 


see. He was just one little—oh, so little—accident, that 
no one remembered. Now heis That! So will you be, 
brother-soldiers so brave—so will you be. But you 
will never come back. You will all go where he is 
gone, or’—he pointed to the great coffin-shadow on the 
ceiling, and muttering, ‘Seventy millions—get a-way, 
you old peoples,’ fell asleep. 

‘Sweet, and to the point,’ said little Mildred. ‘What’s 
the use of getting wroth? Let’s make this poor devil 
comfortable.’ 

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken 
from the loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieu- 
tenant had returned only to go away again three days 
later, when the wail of the Dead March, and the tramp 
of the squadrons, told the wondering Station, who saw 
no gap in the mess-table, that an officer of the regiment 
had resigned his new-found commission. 

And Dirkovitch, bland, supple, and always genial, 
went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and 
another man saw him off, for he was the guest of the 
mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open 
hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hos- 
pitality. 

‘Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey,’ said 
little Mildred. 

‘Au revoir,’ said the Russian. 

‘Indeed! But we thought you were going home?’ 

‘Yes, but I will come again. My dear friends, is 
that road shut?’ He pointed to where the North Star 
burned over the Khyber Pass. 

‘By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet 
you, old man, any time you like. Got everything you 
want? Cheroots, ice, bedding? That’s allright. Well, 
au revoir, Dirkovitch.’ 


186 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Um,’ said the other man, as the tail-lights of the 
train grew small. ‘Of—all—the—unmitigated——!’ 

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the 
North Star and hummed a selection from a recent Simla 
burlesque that had much delighted the White Hussars. 
It ran— 


I’m sorry for Mister Bluebeard, 

I’m sorry to cause him pain; 

But a terrible spree there’s sure to be 
When he comes back again. 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 


There’s a convict more in the Central Jail, 
Behind the old mud wall; 
There’s a lifter less on the Border trail, 
And the Queen’s Peace over all, 
Dear boys 
The Queen’s Peace over all. 


For we must bear our leader’s blame, 
On us the shame will fall, 
Tf we Mft our hand from a fettered land 
And the Queen’s Peace over all, 
Dear boys, 
The Queen’s Peace over all! 
The Running of Shindand. 


I 


Tue Indus had risen in flood without warning. Last 
night it was a fordable shallow; to-night five miles of 
raving muddy water parted bank and caving bank, and 
the river was still rising under the moon. A litter borne 
by six bearded men, all unused to the work, stopped in 
the white sand that bordered the whiter plain. 

‘It’s God’s will,’ they said. ‘We dare not cross to- 
night, even ina boat. Let us light a fire and cook food. 
We be tired men.’ 

They looked at the litter inquiringly. Within, the 
Deputy Commissioner of the Kot-Kumharsen district 
lay dying of fever. They had brought him across 
country, six fighting-men of a frontier clan that he had 

187 


x88 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


won over to the paths of a moderate righteousness, 
when he had broken down at the foot of their inhos- 
pitable hills. And Tallantire, his assistant, rode with 
them, heavy-hearted as heavy-eyed with sorrow and 
lack of sleep. He had served under the sick man for 
three years, and had learned to love him as men asso- 
ciated in toil of the hardest learn to love—orhate. Drop- 
ping from his horse he parted the curtains of the litter 
and peered inside. 

‘Orde—Orde, old man, can you hear? We have to 
wait till the river goes down, worse luck.’ 

‘IT hear,’ returned a dry whisper. ‘Wait till the river 
goes down. I thought we should reach camp before the 
dawn. Polly knows. She’ll meet me.’ 

One of the litter-men stared across the river and 
caught a faint twinkle of light on the far side. He 
whispered to Tallantire, ‘There are his camp-fires, and 
his wife. ‘They will cross in the morning, for they have 
better boats. Can he live so long?’ 

Tallantire shook his head. Yardley-Orde was very 
near to death. What need to vex his soul with hopes 
of a meeting that could not be? The river gulped at 
the banks, brought down a cliff of sand, and snarled the 
more hungrily. The litter-men sought for fuel in the 
waste—dried camel-thorn and refuse of the camps that 
had waited at the ford. Their sword-belts clinked as 
they moved softly in the haze of the moonlight, and Tal- 
lantire’s horse coughed to explain that he would like a 
blanket. 

‘I’m cold too,’ said the voice from the litter. ‘I 
fancy thisis the end. Poor Polly!’ 

Tallantire rearranged the blankets. Khoda Dad 
Khan, seeing this, stripped off his own heavy-wadded 
sheepskin coat and added it to the pile. ‘I shall be 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 189 


warm by the fire presently,’ said he. Tallantire took 
the wasted body of his chief into his arms and held it 
against his breast. Perhaps if they kept him very warm 
Orde might live to see his wife once more. If only 
blind Providence would send a three-foot fall in the river! 

‘That’s better,’ said Orde faintly. ‘Sorry to be a 
nuisance, but is—is there anything to drink?’ 

They gave him milk and whisky, and Tallantire felt 
a little warmth against his own breast. Orde began to 
mutter. 

‘It isn’t that I mind dying,’ he said. ‘It’s leaving 
Polly and the district. Thank God! we have no chil- 
dren. Dick, you know, I’m dipped—awfully dipped— 
debts in my first five years’ service. It isn’t much of a 
pension, but enough for her. She has her mother at 
home. Getting there is the difficulty. And—and—you 
see, not being a soldier’s wife ; 

‘We'll arrange the passage home, of course,’ said 
Tallantire quietly. 

‘It’s not nice to think of sending round the hat; 
but, good Lord! how many men I lie here and remem- 
ber that had to do it! Morten’s dead—he was of my 
year. Shaughnessy is dead, and he had children; I 
remember he used to read us their school-letters; what 
a bore we thought him! Evans is dead—Kot-Kum- 
harsen killed him! Ricketts of Myndonie is dead—and 
I’m going too. ‘‘Man that is born of a woman is small 
potatoes and few in the hill.” That reminds me, Dick; 
the four Khusru Kheyi villages in our border want a 
one-third remittance this spring. That’s fair; their 
crops are bad. See that they get it, and speak to Ferris 
about the canal. I should like to have lived till that 
was finished; it means so much for the North-Indus 
villages—but Ferris is an idle beggar—wake him up. 





190 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


You'll have charge of the district till my successor comes, 
I wish they would appoint you permanently; you know 
the folk. I suppose it will be Bullows, though. ’Good 
man, but too weak for frontier work; and he doesn’t 
understand the priests. The blind priest at Jagai will 
bear watching. You'll find it in my papers,—in the 
uniform-case, I think. Call the Khusru Kheyl men up; 
Til hold my last public audience. Khoda Dad Khan!’ , 

The leader of the men sprang to the side of the litter, 
his companions following. 

‘Men, I’m dying,’ said Orde quickly, in the vernacular; 
‘and soon there will be no more Orde Sahib to twist 
your tails and prevent you from raiding cattle.’ 

‘God forbid this thing!’ broke out the deep bass 
chorus. ‘The Sahib is not going to die.’ 

‘Yes, he is; and then he will know whether Mahomed 
speaks truth, or Moses. But you must be good men, 
when I am not here. Such of you as live in our borders 
must pay your taxes quietly as before. I have spoken of 
the villages to be gently treated this year. Such of you 
as live in the hills must refrain from cattle-lifting, and 
burn no more thatch, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of 
the priests, who, not knowing the strength of the Govern- 
ment, would lead you into foolish wars, wherein you will 
surely die and your crops be eaten by strangers. And 
you must not sack any caravans, and must leave your 
arms at the police-post when you come in; as has been 
your custom, and my order. And Tallantire Sahib will 
be with you, but I do not know who takes my place. I 
speak now true talk, for I am as it were already dead, 
my children,—for though ye be strong men, ye are 
children.’ 

‘And thou art our father and our mother,’ broke in 
Khoda Dad Khan with an oath. ‘What shall we do, 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 19! 


now there is no one to speak for us, or to teach us to 
go wisely!’ 

‘There remains Tallantire Sahib. Go to him; he 
knows your talk and your heart. Keep the young men 
quiet, listen to the old men, and obey. Khoda Dad 
Khan, take my ring. The watch and chain go to thy 
brother. Keep those things for my sake, and I will 
speak to whatever God I may encounter and tell him 
that the Khusru Kheyl are good men. Ye have my 
leave to go.’ 

Khoda Dad Khan, the ring upon his finger, choked 
audibly as he caught the well-known formula that closed 
an interview. His brother turned to look across the 
river. The dawn was breaking, and a speck of white 
showed on the dull silver of the stream. ‘She comes,’ 
said the man under his breath. ‘Can he live for another 
two hours?’ And he pulled the newly-acquired watch 
out of his belt and looked uncomprehendingly at the 
dial, as he had seen Englishmen do. 

For two hours the bellying sail tacked and blundered 
up and down the river, Tallantire still clasping Orde in 
his arms, and Khoda Dad Khan chafing his feet. He 
spoke now and again of the district and his wife, but, 
as the end neared, more frequently of the latter. They 
hoped he did not know that she was even then risk- 
ing her life in a crazy native boat to regain him. But 
the awful foreknowledge of the dying deceived them. 
Wrenching himself forward, Orde looked through the 
curtains and saw how near was the sail. ‘That’s Polly,’ 
he said simply, though his mouth was wried with agony. 
‘Polly and—the grimmest practical joke ever played ona 
man. Dick—you’ll—have—to—explain.’ 

And an hour later Tallantire met on the bank a 
woman in a gingham riding-habit and a sun-hat whe 


192 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


cried out to him for her husband—her boy and her darling 
—while Khoda Dad Khan threw himself face-down on 
the sand and covered his eyes. 


II 


The very simplicity of the notion wasits charm. What 
more easy to win a reputation for far-seeing statesman- 
ship, originality, and, above all, deference to the desires 
of the people, than by appointing a child of the country 
to the rule of that country? Two hundred millions of 
the most leving and grateful folk under Her Majesty’s 
dominion would laud the fact, and their praise would 
endure for ever. Yet he was indifferent to praise or 
blame, as befitted the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys. 
His administration was based upon principle, and the 
principle must be enforced in season and out of season. 
His pen and tongue had created the New India, teeming 
with possibilities—loud-voiced, insistent, a nation among 
nations—all his very own. Wherefore the Very Greatest 
of All the Viceroys took another step in advance, and 
with it counsel of those who should have advised him 
on the appointment of a successor to Yardley-Orde. 
There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil 
Service who had won his place and a university degree 
to boot in fair and open competition with the sons of 
the English. He was cultured, of the world, and, if 
report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, sympatheti- 
cally ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. 
He had been to England and charmed many drawing- 
rooms there. His name, if the Viceroy recollected aright, 
was Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, M. A. In short, did any- 
body see any objection to the appointment, always on 
principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? 
The district in South-Eastern Bengal might with advan- 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 193 


tage, he apprehended, pass over to a younger civilian 
of Mr. G. C. Dé’s nationality (who had written a re- 
markably clever pamphlet on the political value of 
sympathy in administration); and Mr. G. C. Dé could 
be transferred northward to Kot-Kumharsen. The 
Viceroy was averse, on principle, to interfering with 
appointments under control of the Provincial Govern- 
ments. He wished it to be understood that he merely 
recommended and advised in this instance. As regarded 
the mere question of race, Mr. Grish Chunder Dé was 
more English than the English, and yet possessed of that 
peculiar sympathy and insight which the best among the 
best Service in the world could only win to at the end 
of their service. 

The stern, black-bearded kings who sit about the 
Council-board of India divided on the step, with the in- 
evitable result of driving the Very Greatest of All the 
Viceroys into the borders of hysteria, and a bewildered 
obstinacy pathetic as that of a child. 

‘The principle is sound enough,’ said the weary-eyed 
Head of the Red Provinces in which Kot-Kumharsen 
lay, for he too held theories. ‘The only difficulty is : 

‘Put the screw on the District officials; brigade Dé 
with a very strong Deputy Commissioner on each side 
of him; give him the best assistant in the Province; 
rub the fear of God into the people beforehand; and if 
anything goes wrong, say that his colleagues didn’t back 
him up. All these lovely little experiments recoil on 
the District-Officer in the end,’ said the Knight of the 
Drawn Sword with a truthful brutality that made the 
Head of the Red Provinces shudder. And on a tacit 
understanding of this kind the transfer was accomplished, 
as quietly as might be for many reasons. 

It is sad to think that what goes for public opinion 





494 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


in India did not generally see the wisdom of the Viceroy’s 
appointment. There were not lacking indeed hireling 
organs, notoriously in the pay of a tyrannous bureau- 
cracy, who more than hinted that His Excellency was a 
fool, a dreamer of dreams, a doctrinaire, and, worst of 
all, a trifler with the lives of men. ‘The Viceroy’s Ex-~ 
cellence Gazette,’ published in Calcutta, was at pains to 
thank ‘Our beloved Viceroy for once more and again 
thus gloriously vindicating the potentialities of tha 
Bengali nations for extended executive and administra- 
tive duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not 
at all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, Mr. 
Grish Chunder Dé, Esq., M. A., will uphold the prestige 
of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue 
and peshbundi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his 
fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians, 
some of which will now have to serve under a despised 
native and take orders too. How will you like that, 
Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to sub- 
stantiate himself superiorly to race-prejudice and colour- 
blindness, and to allow the flower of this now our Civil 
Service all the full pays and allowances granted to his 
more fortunate brethren.’ 


Tif 


“When does this man take over charge? I’m alone 
just now, and I gather that I’m to stand fast under him.’ 

‘Would you have cared for a transfer?’ said Bullows 
keenly. Then, laying his hand on Tallantire’s shoulder: 
“We're all in the same boat; don’t desert us. And yet, 
why the devil should you stay, if you can get another 
charge?’ 

‘It was Orde’s,’ said Tallantire simply. 

‘Well, it’s Dé’s now. He’s a Bengali of the Bengalis, 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 195 


crammed with code and case law; a beautiful man so far 
as routine and deskwork go, and pleasant to talk to. 
They naturally have always kept him in his own home 
district, where all his sisters and his cousins and _ his 
aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca.. He did no more 
than turn the place into a pleasant little family preserve, 
allowed his subordinates to do what they liked, and let 
everybody have a chance at the shekels. Consequently 
he’s immensely popular down there.’ 

‘I’ve nothing to do with that. How on earth am I to 
explain to the district that they are going to be governed 
by a Bengali? Do you—does the Government, I mean 
—suppose that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when 
they once know? What will the Mahomedan heads of 
villages say? How will the police—Muzbi Sikhs and 
Pathans—how will they work under him? We couldn’t 
say anything if the Government appointed a sweeper; 
but my people will say a good deal, you know that. It’s 
a piece of cruel folly!’ 

‘My dear boy, I know all that, and more. I’ve rep- 
resented it, and have been told that I am exhibiting 
“culpable and puerile prejudice.” By Jove, if the 
Khusru Kheyl don’t exhibit something worse than that 
I don’t know the Border! The chances are that you 
will have the district alight on your hands, and I shall 
have to leave my work and help you pull through. I 
needn’t ask you to stand by the Bengali man in every 
possible way. You'll do that for your own sake.’ 

‘For Orde’s. I can’t say that I care twopence per- 
sonally.’ 

‘Don’t be an ass. It’s grievous enough, God knows, 
and the Government will know later on; but that’s no 
reason for your sulking. You must try to run the dis- 
- trict, you must stand between him and as much insult as 
7 


196 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


possible; you must show him the ropes; you must pacify 
the Khusru Kheyl, and just warn Curbar of the Police te 
look out for trouble by the way. I’m always at the end 
of a telegraph-wire, and willing to peril my reputation 
to hold the district together. You'll lose yours, of course. 
If you keep things straight, and he isn’t actually beaten 
with a stick when he’s on tour, he’ll get all the credit. 
If anything goes wrong, you'll be told that you didn’t 
support him loyally.’ 

‘I know what I’ve got to do,’ said Tallantire wearily, 
‘and I’m going to doit. But it’s hard.’ 

‘The work is with us, the event is with Allah,—as 
Orde used to say when he was more than usually in hot 
water.’ And Bullows rode away. 

That two gentlemen in Her Majesty’s Bengal Civil 
Service should thus discuss a third, also in that service, 
and a cultured and affable man withal, seems strange 
and saddening. Yet listen to the artless babble of the 
Blind Mullah of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl, 
sitting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five years 
before, a chance-hurled shell from a screw-gun battery 
had dashed earth in the face of the Mullah, then urging 
a rush ot Ghazis against half a dozen British bayonets. 
So he became blind, and hated the English none the less 
for the little accident. Yardley-Orde knew his failing, 
and had many times laughed at him therefor. 

‘Dogs you are,’ said the Blind Mullah to the listening 
tribesmen round the fire. ‘Whipped dogs! Because 
you listened to Orde Sahib and called him father and 
behaved as his children, the British Government have 
proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye know is 
dead.’ 

‘Ai! ai! ai!’ said half a dozen voices. 

‘He wasa man. Comes now in his stead, whom think 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 197 


ye? A Bengali of Bengal—an eater of fish from the 
South.’ 

‘A lie!’ said Khoda Dad Khan. ‘And but for the 
small matter of thy priesthood, I’d drive my gun butt- 
first down thy throat.’ 

‘Oho, art thou there, lickspittle of the English? Go 
in to-morrow across the Border to pay service to Orde 
Sahib’s successor, and thou shalt slip thy shoes at the 
tent-door of a Bengali, as thou shalt hand thy offering te 
a Bengali’s black fist. This I know; and in my youth, 
when a young man spoke evil to a Mullah holding the 
doors of Heaven and Hell, the gun-butt was not rammed 
down the Mullah’s gullet. No!’ 

The Blind Mullah hated Khoda Dad Khan with 
Aighan hatred; both being rivals for the headship of the 
tribe; but the latter was feared for bodily as the other for 
spiritual gifts. Khoda Dad Khan looked at Orde’s ring 
and grunted, ‘I go in to-morrow because I am not an old 
fool, preaching war against the English. If the Govern- 
ment, smitten with madness, have done this, then. . .” 

‘Then,’ croaked the Mullah, ‘thou wilt take out the 
young men and strike at the four villages within the 
Border?’ 

‘Or wring thy neck, black raven of Jehannum, for a 
bearer of ill-tidings.’ 

Khoda Dad Khan oiled his long locks with great care, 
put on his best Bokhara belt, a new turban-cap and fine 
green shoes, and accompanied by a few friends came 
down from the hills to pay a visit to the new Deputy 
Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen. Also he bore tribute 
—four or five priceless gold mohurs of Akbar’s time in a 
white handkerchief. These the Deputy Commissioner 
would touch and remit. The little ceremony used to be 
a sign that, so far as Khoda Dad Khan’s personal influ- 


198 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


ence went, the Khusru Kheyl would be good boys,—till 
the next time; especially if Khoda Dad Khan hap- 
pened to like the new Deputy Commissioner. In Yardley- 
Orde’s consulship his visit concluded with a sumptuous 
dinner and perhaps forbidden liquors; certainly with 
some wonderful tales and great good-fellowship. Then 
Khoda Dad Khan would swagger back to his hold, vow- 
ing that Orde Sahib was one prince and Tallantire Sahib 
another, and that whosoever went a-raiding into British 
territory would be flayed alive. On this occasion he 
found the Deputy Commissioner’s tents looking much as 
usual. Regarding himself as privileged he strode through 
the open door to confont a suave, portly Bengali in 
English costume writing at a table. Unversed in the 
elevating influence of education, and not in the least 
caring for university degrees, Khoda Dad Khan promptly 
set the man down for a Babu—the native clerk of the 
Deputy Commissioner—a hated and despised animal. 

‘Ugh!’ said he cheerfully. ‘Where’s your master, 
Babujee?’ 

‘I am the Deputy Commissioner,’ said the gentleman 
in English. 

Now he overvalued the effects of university degrees, 
and stared Khoda Dad Khan in the face. But if from 
your earliest infancy you have been accustomed to look 
on battle, murder, and sudden death, if spilt blood affects 
your nerves as much as red paint, and, above all, if you 
have faithfully believed that the Bengali was the servant 
of all Hindustan, and that all Hindustan was vastly 
inferior to your own large, lustful self, you can endure, 
even though uneducated, a very large amount of looking 
over. You can even stare down a graduate of an Oxford 
college if the latter has been born in a hothouse, of stock 
bred in a hothouse, and fearing physical pain as some 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 199 


men fear sin; especially if your opponent’s mother has 
frightened him to sleep in his youth with horrible stories 
of devils inhabiting Afghanistan, and dismal legends of 
the black North. The eyes behind the gold spectacles 
sought the floor. Khoda Dad Khan chuckled, and 
swung out to find Tallantire hard by. ‘Here,’ said he 
roughly, thrusting the coins before him, ‘touch and 
remit. That answers for my good behaviour. But, O 
Sahib, has the Government gone mad to send a black 
Bengali dog to us? And am I to pay service to such an 
one? And are you to work under him? What does it 
mean?’ 

‘It is an order,’ said Tallantire. He had expected 
something of thiskind. ‘He isa very clever S-sahib.’ 

‘He a Sahib! He’s a kala admi—a black man— 
unfit to run at the tail of a pctter’s donkey. All the 
peoples of the earth have harried Bengal. It is written. 
Thou knowest when we of the North wanted women or 
plunder whither went we? To Bengal—where else? 
What child’s talk is this of Sahibdom—after Orde Sahib 
too! Ofa truth the Blind Mullah was right.’ 

‘What of him?’ asked Tallantire uneasily. He mis- 
trusted that old man with his dead eyes and his deadly 
tongue. 

‘Nay, now, because of the oath that I sware to Orde 
Sahib when we watched him die by the river yonder, I 
will tell. In the first place, is it true that the English 
have set the heel of the Bengali on their own neck, and 
that there is no more English rule in the land?’ | 

‘I am here,’ said Tallantire, ‘and I serve the Maha- 
ranee of England.’ 

‘The Mullah said otherwise, and further that because 
we loved Orde Sahib the Government sent us a pig to 
show that we were dogs, who till now have been held by 


200 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the strong hand. Also that they were taking away the 
white soldiers, that more Hindustanis might come, and 
that all was changing.’ 

This is the worst of ill-considered handling of a very 
large country. What looks so feasible in Calcutta, so 
right in Bombay, so unassailable in Madras, is mis- 
understood by the North and entirely changes its com- 
plexion on the banks of the Indus. Khoda Dad Khan 
explained as clearly as he could that, though he himself 
intended to be good, he really could not answer for the 
more reckless members of his tribe under the leadership 
of the Blind Mullah. They might or they might not 
give trouble, but they certainly had no intention what- 
ever of obeying the new Deputy Commissioner. Was 
Tallantire perfectly sure that in the event of any system- 
atic border-raiding the force in the district could put it 
down promptly? 

‘Tell the Mullah if he talks any more fool’s talk,’ said 
Tallantire curtly, ‘that he takes his men on to certain 
death, and his tribe to blockade, trespass-fine, and blood- 
money. But why do I talk to one who no longer carries 
weight in the counsels of the tribe?’ 

Khoda Dad Khan pocketed that insult. He had 
learned something that he much wanted to know, and 
returned to his hills to be sarcastically complimented by 
the Mullah, whose tongue raging round the camp-fires 
was deadlier flame than ever dung-cake fed. 


IV 


Be pleased to consider here for a moment the unknown 
district of Kot-Kumharsen. It lay cut lengthways by 
the Indus under the line of the Khusru hills—ramparts 
of useless earth and tumbled stone. It was seventy 
miles long by fifty broad, maintained a population of 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 202 


something less than two hundred thousand, and paid 
taxes to the extent of forty thousand pounds a year on an 
area that was by rather more than half sheer, hopeless 
waste. The cultivators were not gentle people, the 
miners for salt were less gentle still, and the cattle- 
breeders least gentle of all. A police-post in the top 
right-hand corner and a tiny mud fort in the top left- 
hand corner prevented as much salt-smuggling and 
cattle-lifting as the influence of the civilians could not 
put down; and in the bottom right-hand corner lay Ju- 
mala, the district headquarters—a pitiful knot of lime- 
washed barns facetiously rented as houses, reeking with 
frontier fever, leaking in the rain, and ovens in the sum- 
mer, 

It was to this place that Grish Chunder Dé was 
travelling, there formally to take over charge of the dis- 
trict. But the news of his coming had gone before. 
Bengalis were as scarce as poodles among the simple 
Borderers, who cut each other’s heads open with their 
long spades and worshipped impartially at Hindu and 
Mahomedan shrines. They crowded to see him, point- 
ing at him, and diversely comparing him to a gravid 
milch-buffalo, or a broken-down horse, as their limited 
range of metaphor prompted. They laughed at his 
police-guard, and wished to know how long the burly 
Sikhs were going to lead Bengali apes. They inquired 
whether he had brought his women with him, and ad- 
vised him explicitly not to tamper with theirs. It re- 
mained for a wrinkled hag by the roadside to slap her 
lean breasts as he passed, crying, ‘I have suckled six 
that could have eaten six thousand of him. ‘The Govern- 
ment shot them, and made this That a king!’ Whereat 
a blue-turbaned huge-boned plough-mender shouted, 
‘Have hope, mother o’ mine! He may yet go the way 


202 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


of thy wastrels.’ And the children, the little brown 
puff-balls, regarded curiously. It was generally a 
good thing for infancy to stray into Orde Sahib’s tent, 
where copper coins were to be won for the mere wishing, 
and tales of the most authentic, such as even their 
mothers knew but the first half of. No! This fat black 
man could never tell them how Pir Prith hauled the eye- 
teeth out of ten devils; how the big stones came to lie 
all in a row on top of the Khusru hills, arid what happened 
if you shouted through the village-gate to the gray wolf 
at even ‘Badl Khas is dead.’ Meantime Grish Chunder 
Dé talked hastily and much to Tallantire, after the 
manner of those who are ‘more English than the English,’ 
—of Oxford and ‘home,’ with much curious book-knowl- 
edge of bump-suppers, cricket-matches, hunting-runs, 
and other unholy sports of the alien. ‘We must get 
these fellows in hand,’ he said once or twice uneasily; 
‘get them well in hand, and drive them on a tight rein. 
No use, you know, being slack with your district.’ 

And a moment later Tallantire heard Debendra Nath 
Dé, who brotherliwise had followed his kinsman’s fortune 
and hoped for the shadow of his protection as a pleader, 
whisper in Bengali, ‘Better are dried fish at Dacca than 
drawn swords at Delhi. Brother of mine, these men are 
- devils, as our mother said. And you will always have to 
ride upon a horse!’ 

That night there was a public audience in a broken- 
down little town thirty miles from Jumala, when the 
new Deputy Commissioner, in reply to the greetings of 
the subordinate native officials, delivered a speech. It 
was a carefully thought-out speech, which would have 
been very valuable had not his third sentence begun with 
three innocent words, ‘Hamara hookum hai—It is my 
order.’ Then there was a laugh, clear and bell-like, from 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 203: 


the back of the big tent, where a few border landholders 
sat, and the laugh grew and scorn mingled with it, and the 
lean, keen face of Debendra Nath Dé paled, and Grish 
Chunder turning to Tallantire spake: ‘You—you put 
up this arrangement.’ Upon that instant the noise of 
hoofs rang without, and there entered Curbar, the Dis- 
trict Superintendent of Police, sweating and dusty. The 
State had tossed him into a corner of the province for 
seventeen weary years, there to check smuggling of salt, 
and to hope for promotion that never came. He had 
forgotten how to keep his white uniform clean, had 
screwed rusty spurs into patent-leather shoes, and 
clothed his head indifferently with a helmet or a turban. 
Soured, old, worn with heat and cold, he waited till he 
should be entitled to sufficient pension to keep him from 
starving. 

‘Tallantire,’ said he, disregarding Grish Chunder Dé, 
‘come outside. I want to speak to you.’ They with- 
drew. ‘It’s this,’ continued Curbar. ‘The Khusru 
Kheyl have rushed and cut up half a dozen of the coolies 
on Ferris’s new canal-embankment; killed a couple of 
men and carried off a woman. I wouldn’t trouble you 
about that—Ferris is after them and Hugonin, my as- 
sistant, with ten mounted police. But that’s only the 
beginning, I fancy. Their fires are out on the Hassan 
Ardeb heights, and unless we’re pretty quick there’ll be 
a flare-up all along our Border. They are sure to raid 
the four Khusru villages on our side of the line; there’s 
been bad blood between them for years; and you know 
the Blind Mullah has been preaching a holy war since 
Orde went out. What’s your notion?’ 

‘Damn!’ said Tallantire thoughtfully. ‘They’ve be- 
gun quick. Well, it seems to me I’d better ride off to 
Fort Ziar and get what men I can there to picket among 


204 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the lowland villages, if it’s not too late. Tommy Dodd 
commands at Fort Ziar, I think. Ferris and Hugonin 
ought to teach the canal-thieves a lesson, and No, 
we can’t have the Head of the Police ostentatiously 
guarding the Treasury. You go back to the canal. I'll 
wire Bullows to come into Jumala with a strong police- 
guard, and sit on the Treasury. They won’t touch the 
place, but it looks well.’ 

‘I—I—I insist upon knowing what this means,’ said 
the voice of the Deputy Commissioner, who had followed 
the speakers. 

‘Oh!’ said Curbar, who being in the Police could not 
understand that fifteen years of education must, on 
principle, change the Bengali into a Briton. ‘There has 
been a fight on the Border, and heaps of men are killed. 
There’s going to be another fight, and heaps more will be 
killed.’ 

‘What for?’ 

‘Because the teeming millions of this district don’t 
exactly approve of you, and think that under your benign 
rule they are going to have a good time. It strikes me 
that you had better make arrangements. I act, as you 
know, by your orders. What do you advise?’ . 

‘I—I take you all to witness that I have not yet 
assumed charge of the district,’ stammered the Deputy 
Commissioner, not in the tones of the ‘more English.’ 

‘Ah, I thought so. Well, as I was saying, Tallantire, 
your plan is sound. Carry it out. Do you want an 
escort?’ 

‘No; only a decent horse. But how about wiring to 
headquarters?’ 

‘I fancy, from the colour of his cheeks, that your 
superior officer will send some wonderful telegrams before 
the night’s over. Let him do that, and we shall have 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 205 


half the troops of the province coming up to see what’s 
the trouble. Well, run along, and take care of yourself— 
the Khusru Kheyl jab upwards from below, remember. 
Ho! Mir Khan, give Tallantire Sahib the best of the 
horses, and tell five men to ride to Jumala with the Dep- 
uty Commissioner Sahib Bahadur. There is a hurry 
toward.’ 

There was; and it was not in the least bettered by 
Debendra Nath Dé clinging to a policeman’s bridle and 
demanding the shortest, the very shortest way to Jumala. 
Now originality is fatal to the Bengali. Debendra Nath 
should have stayed with his brother, who rode steadfastly 
for Jumala on the railway-line, thanking gods entirely 
unknown to the most catholic of universities that he had 
not taken charge of the district, and could still—happy 
resource of a fertile race!—fall sick. 

And I grieve to say that when he reached his goal 
two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been con- 
ferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged 
an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one 
and then the other entering his room with prodigious 
details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and devilish 
tribes, and the burning of towns. It was almost as good, 
said these scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive 
Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at work for 
half an hour on telegrams which the sack of Delhi would 
hardly have justified. To every power that could move 
a bayonet or transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder Dé 
appealed telegraphically. He was alone, his assistants 
had fled, and in truth he had not taken over charge of 
the district. Had the telegrams been despatched many 
things would have occurred; but since the only signaller 
in Jumala had gone to bed, and the station-master, after 
one look at the tremendous pile of paper, discovered that 


206 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


railway regulations forbade the forwarding of imperial 
messages, policemen Ram Singh and Nihal Singh were 
fain to turn the stuff into a pillow and slept on it very 
comfortably. 

Tallantire drove his spurs into a rampant skewbald 
stallion with china-blue eyes, and settled himself for the 
forty-mile ride to Fort Ziar. Knowing his district blind- 
fold, he wasted no time hunting for short cuts, but headed 
across the richer grazing-ground to the ford where Orde 
had‘died and been buried. The dusty ground deadened 
the noise of his horse’s hoofs, the moon threw his shadow, 
a restless goblin, before him, and the heavy dew drenched 
him to the skin. Hillock, scrub that brushed against the 
horse’s belly, unmetalled road where the whip-like foliage 
of the tamarisks lashed his forehead, illimitable levels of 
lowland furred with bent and speckled with drowsing 
cattle, waste, and hillock anew, dragged themselves past, 
and the skewbald was labouring in the deep sand of the 
Indus-ford. Tallantire was conscious of no distinct 
thought till the nose of the dawdling ferry-boat grounded 
on the farther side, and his horse shied snorting at the 
white headstone of Orde’s grave. Then he uncovered, 
and shouted that the dead might hear, ‘They’re out, old 
man! Wish me luck.’ In the chill of the dawn he was 
hammering with a stirrup-iron at the gate of Fort Ziar, 
where fifty sabres of that tattered regiment, the Belooch 
Beshaklis were supposed to guard Her Majesty’s interests 
along a few hundred miles of Border. ‘This particular 
fort was commanded by a subaltern, who, born of the 
ancient family of the Derouletts, naturally answered to 
the name of Tommy Dodd. Him Tallantire found robed 
in a sheepskin coat, shaking with fever like an aspen, and 
trying to read the native apothecary’s list of invalids. 

‘So you’ve come, too,’ said he. ‘Well, we’re all sick 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 207 


here, and I don’t think I can horse thirty men; but we’re 
bub—bub—bub blessed willing. Stop, does this im- 
press you as a trap or a lie?’ He tossed a scrap of paper 
to Tallantire, on which was written painfully in crabbed 
Gurmukhi, ‘We cannot hold young horses. They will 
feed after the moon goes down in the four border villages 
issuing from the Jagai pass on the next night.’ Then in 
English round hand—‘ Your sincere friend.’ 

‘Good man!’ said Tallantire. ‘That’s Khoda Dad 
Khan’s work, I know. It’s the only piece of English he 
could ever keep in his head, and he is immensely proud 
of it. He is playing against the Blind Mullah for his 
own hand—the treacherous young ruffian!’ 

‘Don’t know the politics of the Khusru Kheyl, but if 
you're satisfied, I am. That was pitched in over the 
gate-head last night, and I thought we might pull our- 
selves together and see what was on. Oh, but we’re sick 
with fever here and no mistake! Is this going to be a 
big business, think you?’ said Tommy Dodd. 

Tallantire gave him briefly the outlines of the case, and 
Tommy Dodd whistled and shook with fever alternately. 
That day he devoted to strategy, the art of war, and the 
enlivenment of the invalids, till at dusk there stood ready 
forty-two troopers, lean, worn, and dishevelled, whom 
Tommy Dodd surveyed with pride, and addressed thus: 
‘O men! If you die you will go to Hell. Therefore 
endeavour to keep alive. But if you go to Hell that 
place cannot be hotter than this place, and we are not 
told that we shall there suffer from fever. Consequently 
be not afraid of dying. File out there!’ They grinned, 
and went. 

V 

It will be long ere the Khusru Kheyl forget their 

night attack an the lowland villages. The Mullah had 


208 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


promised an easy victory and unlimited plunder; but 
behold, armed troopers of the Queen had risen out of 
the very earth, cutting, slashing, and riding down under 
the stars, so that no man knew where to turn, and all 
feared that they had brought an army about their ears, 
and ran back to the hills. In the panic of that flight 
more men were seen to drop from wounds inflicted by 
an Afghan knife jabbed upwards, and yet more from 
long-range carbine-fire. ‘Then there rose a cry of treach- 
ery, and when they reached their own guarded heights, 
they had left, with some forty dead and sixty wounded, 
all their confidence in the Blind Mullah on the plains 
below. They clamoured, swore, and argued round the 
fires; the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah 
shrieking curses on the returned. 

Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and unbreathed, 
for he had taken no part in the fight, rose to improve the 
occasion. He pointed out that the tribe owed every item 
of its present misfortune to the Blind Mullah, who had 
lied in every possible particular and talked them into a 
trap. It was undoubtedly an insult that a Bengali, the 
son of a Bengali, should presume to administer the 
Border, but that fact did not, as the Mullah pretended, 
herald a general time of license and lifting; and the inex- 
plicable madness of the English had not in the least im- 
paired their power of guarding their marches. On the 
contrary, the baffled and out-generalled tribe would now, 
just when their food-stock was lowest, be blockaded 
from any trade with Hindustan until they had sent 
hostages for good behaviour, paid compensation for 
disturbance, and blood-money at the rate of thirty-six 
English pounds per head for every villager that they 
might have slain. ‘And ye know that those lowland 
dogs will make oath that we have slain scores. Will the 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 209 


Mullah pay the fines or must we sell our guns?’ A 
low growl ran round the fires. ‘Now, seeing that all 
this is the Mullah’s work, and that we have gained noth- 
ing but promises of Paradise thereby, it is in my heart 
that we of the Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to 
pray. We are weakened, and henceforth how shall we 
dare to cross into the Madar Khey] border, as has been 
our custom, to kneel to Pir Sajji’s tomb? The Madar 
men will fall upon us, and rightly. But our Mullah is a 
holy man. He has helped two score of us into Paradise 
this night. Let him therefore accompany his flock, and 
we will build over his body a dome of the blue tiles of 
Mooltan, and burn lamps at his feet every Friday night. 
He shall be a saint: we shall have a shrine; and there our 
women shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our 
fighting-tale. How think you?’ 

A grim chuckle followed the suggestion, and the soft 
wheep, wheep of unscabbarded knives followed the chuc- 
kle. It was an excellent notion, and met a long felt want 
of the tribe. The Mullah sprang to his feet, glaring with 
withered eyeballs at the drawn death he could not see, 
and calling down the curses of God and Mahomed on 
the tribe. Then began a game of blind man’s buff round 
and between the fires, whereof Khuruk Shah, the tribal 
poet, has sung in verse that will not die. 

They tickled him gently under the armpit with the 
knife-point. He leaped aside screaming, only to feel a 
cold blade drawn lightly over the back of his neck, or a 
rifle-muzzle rubbing his beard. He called on his ad- 
herents to aid him, but most of these lay dead on the 
plains, for Khoda Dad Khan had been at some pains to 
arrange their decease. Men described to him the glories 
of the shrine they would build, and the little children 
clapping their hands cried, ‘Run, Mullah, run! There’s 


210 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


aman behind you!’ In the end, when the sport wearied, 
Khoda Dad Khan’s brother sent a knife home between 
his ribs. ‘Wherefore,’ said Khoda Dad Khan with 
charming simplicity, ‘I am now Chief of the Khusru 
Kheyl!’ No man gainsaid him; and they all went to 
sleep very stiff and sore. 

On the plain below Tommy Dodd was lecturing 
on the beauties of a cavalry charge by night, and Tal- 
lantire, bowed on his saddle, was gasping hysterically 
because there was a sword dangling from his wrist 
flecked with the blood of the Khusru Kheyl, the tribe 
that Orde had kept in leash so well. When a Rajpoot 
trooper pointed out that the skewbald’s right ear had 
been taken off at the root by some blind slash of its un- 
skilled rider, Tallantire broke down altogether, and 
laughed and sobbed till Tommy Dodd made him lie down 
and rest. 

‘We must wait about till the morning,’ said he. ‘I 
wired to the Colonel just before we left, to send a wing 
of the Beshaklis after us. He’ll be furious with me for 
monopolising the fun, though. Those beggars in the hills 
won’t give us any more trouble.’ 

‘Then tell the Beshaklis to go on and see what 
has happened to Curbar on the canal. We must patrol 
the whole line of the Border. You’re quite sure, Tommy, 
that—that stuff was—was only the skewbald’s ear?’ 

‘Oh, quite,’ said Tommy. ‘You just missed cutting 
off his head. J saw you when we went into the mess. 
Sleep, old man.’ 

Noon brought two squadrons of Beshaklis and a 
knot of furious brother officers demanding the court- 
martial of Tommy Dodd for ‘spoiling the picnic,’ and 
a gallop across country to the canal-works where Ferris, 
Curbar, and Hugonin were haranguing the terror-strickep 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 211 


coolies on the enormity of abandoning good work and 
high pay, merely because half a dozen of their fellows 
had been cut down. ‘The sight of a troop of the Beshaklis 
restored wavering confidence, and the police-hunted 
section of the Khusru Kheyl had the joy of watching the 
canal-bank humming with life as usual, while such of 
their men as had taken refuge in the watercourses and 
ravines were being driven out by the troopers. By 
sundown began the remorseless patrol of the Border by 
police and trooper, most like the cow-boys’ eternal ride 
round restless cattle. 

‘Now,’ said Khoda Dad Khan to his fellows, pointing 
out a line of twinkling fires below, ‘ye may see how far 
the old order changes. After their horse will come the 
little devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops of 
the hills, and, for aught I know, to the clouds when we 
crown the hills. If the tribe-council thinks good, I will 
go to Tallantire Sahib—who loves me—and see if I can 
stave off at least the blockade. Do I speak for the 
tribe?’ 

‘Ay, speak for the tribe in God’s name. How those 
accursed fires wink! Do the English send their troops 
on the wire—or is this the work of the Bengali?’ 

As Khoda Dad Khan went down the hill he was 
delayed by an interview with a hard-pressed tribes- 
man, which caused him to return hastily for some- 
thing he had forgotten. Then, handing himself over 
to the two troopers who had been chasing his friend, 
he claimed escort to Tallantire Sahib, then with Bul- 
lows at Jumala. The Border was safe, and the time 
for reasons in writing had begun. 

“Thank Heaven!’ said Bullows, ‘that the trouble 
came at once. Of course we can never put down the 
reason in black and white. but all India will under- 


212 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


stand. And it is better to have a sharp short out- 
break than five years of impotent administration inside 
the Border. It costs less. Grish Chunder Dé has 
reported himself sick, and has been transferred to his 
own province without any sort of reprimand. He 
was strong on not having taken over the district.’ 

‘Of course,’ said Tallantire bitterly. ‘Well, what am 
I supposed to have done that was wrong?’ 

‘Oh, you will be told that you exceeded all your 
powers, and should have reported, and written, and 
advised for three weeks until the Khusru Kheyl could 
really come down in force. But I don’t think the 
authorities will dare to make a fuss about it. They’ve 
had their lesson. Have you seen Curbar’s version of 
the affair? He can’t write a report, but he can speak 
the truth.’ 

‘What’s the use of the truth? He’d much better 
tear up the report. I’m sick and heartbroken over 
it all. It was so utterly unnecessary—except in that 
it rid us of that Babu.’ 

Entered unabashed Khoda Dad Khan, a stuffed 
forage-net in his hand, and the troopers behind him. 

‘May you never be tired!’ said he cheerily. ‘Well, 
Sahibs, that was a good fight, and Naim Shah’s mother is 
in debt to you, Tallantire Sahib. A clean cut, they tell 
me, through jaw, wadded coat, and deep into the collar- 
bone. Well done! But I speak for the tribe. There 
has been a fault—a great fault. Thou knowest that I 
and mine, Tallantire Sahib, kept the oath we sware 
to Orde Sahib on the banks of the Indus.’ 

‘As an Afghan keeps his knife—sharp on one side, 
blunt on the other,’ said Tallantire. 

‘The better swing in the blow, then. But I speak 
God’s truth. Only the Blind Mullah carried the young 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 213 


men on the tip of his tongue, and said that there was no 
more Border-law because a Bengali had been sent, and we 
need not fear the English at all. So they came down to 
avenge that insult and get plunder. Ye know what be- 
fell, and how far I helped. Now five score of us are dead 
or wounded, and we are all shamed and sorry, and desire 
no further war. Moreover, that ye may better listen to 
us, we have taken off the head of the Blind Mullah, 
whose evil counsels have led us to folly. I bring it for 
proof,’—and he heaved on the floor the head. ‘He will 
give no more trouble, for J am chief now, and so I sit in 
a higher place at all audiences. Yet there is an offset to 
this head. That was another fault. One of the men 
found that black Bengali beast, through whom this 
trouble arose, wandering on horseback and weeping. 
Reflecting that he had caused loss of much good life, 
Alla Dad Khan, whom, if you choose, I will to-morrow 
shoot, whipped off this head, and I bring it to you 
to cover your shame, that ye may bury it. See, no man 
kept the spectacles, though they were of gold.’ 

Slowly rolled to Tallantire’s feet the crop-haired head 
of a spectacled Bengali gentleman, open-eyed, open- 
mouthed—the head of Terror incarnate. Bullows bent 
down. ‘Yet another blood-fine and a heavy one, Khoda 
Dad Khan, for this is the head of Debendra Nath, the 
man’s brother. The Babu is safe long since. All but the 
fools of the Khusru Kheyl] know that.’ 

‘Well, I care not for carrion. Quick meat for me. 
The thing was under our hills asking the road to Ju- 
mala and Alla Dad Khan showed him the road to 
Jehannum, being, as thou sayest, but a fool. Remains 
now what the Government will do to us. As to the 
blockade——’ 

‘Who art thou, seller of dog’s flesh,’ thundered Tallan- 


214 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


tire, ‘to speak of terms and treaties? Get henee to the 
hills—go, and wait there starving, till it shall please the 
Government to call thy people out for punishment— 
children and fools that ye be! Count your dead, and be 
still. Best assured that the Government will send you a 
man J? 

‘Ay,’ returned Khoda Dad Khan, ‘for we also be 
men.’ 

As he looked Tallantire between the eyes, he added, 
‘And by God, Sahib, may thou be that man!’ 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 


Before my Spring I garnered Autumn’s gain, 
Out of her time my field was white with grain, 

The year gave up her secrets to my woe. 
Forced and deflowered each sick season lay, 
In mystery of increase and decay; 
I saw the sunset ere men saw the day, 

Who am too wise in that I should not know. 

Bitter W aters. 


‘Bur if it be a girl?’ 

‘Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for 
so many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl’s shrine so 
often, that I know God will give us a son—a man-child 
that shall grow intoa man. Think of this and be glad. 
My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again, 
and the mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his 
nativity—God send he be born in an auspicious hour!— 
and then, and then thou wilt never weary of me, thy 
slave.’ 

‘Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?’ 

‘Since the beginning—till this mercy came to me. 
How could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had 
been bought with silver?’ 

‘Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother.’ 

‘And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long 
like a hen. What talk is yours of dower! I was bought 
as though I had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a 
child.’ 


210 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Art thou sorry for the sale?’ 

‘IT have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt 
never cease to love me now?—answer, my king.’ 

‘Never--never. “No. 

‘Not even though the mem-log—the white women of 
thy own blood—love thee? And remember, I have 
watched them driving in the evening; they are very fair.’ 

‘I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have 
seen the moon, and—then I saw no more fire-balloons.’ 

Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. ‘Very good 
talk,’ she said. Then with an assumption of great state- 
liness, ‘It is enough. Thou hast my permission to de- 
part,—if thou wilt.’ 

The man did not move. He was sitting on a low 
red-lacquered couch wn a room furnished only with a 
blue and white floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very com- 
plete collection of native cushions. At his feet sat a 
woman of sixteen, and she was all but all the world in his 
eyes. By every rule and law she should have been other- 
wise, for he was an Englishman, and she a Mussulman’s 
daughter bought two years before from her mother, who, 
being left without money, would have sold Ameera 
shrieking to the Prince of Darkness if the price had been 
sufficient. 

It was a contract entered into with a light heart; 
but even before the girl had reached her bloom she 
came to fill the greater portion of John Holden’s life. 
For her, and the withered hag her mother, he had taken 
a little house overlooking the great red-walled city, and 
found,—when the marigolds had sprung up by the well 
in the courtyard and Ameera had established herself 
according to her own ideas of comfort, and her mother 
had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking- 
places, the distance from the daily market, and at matters 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 217 


of house-keeping in general,—that the house was to him 
his home. Any one could enter his bachelor’s bungalow 
by day or night, and the life that he led there was an 
unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet only 
could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the women’s 
rooms; and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind 
him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera for 
queen. And there was going to be added to this king- 
dom a third person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to 
resent. It interfered with his perfect happiness. It 
disarranged the orderly peace of the house that was his 
own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the thought 
of it, and her mother not less so. The love of a man, and 
particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant 
affair, but it might, both women argued, be held fast by 
a baby’s hands. ‘And then,’ Ameera would always say, 
‘then he will never care for the white mem-log. I hate 
them all—I hate them all.’ 

‘He will go back to his own people in time,’ said 
the mother; ‘but by the blessing of God that time is yet 
afar off.’ 

Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, 
and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of 
a double life are manifold. The Government, with 
singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a 
fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was 
watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal 
notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful 
remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being 
a bachelor and a freeman. He came to break the news 
to Ameera. 

‘It is not good,’ she said slowly, ‘but it is not all 
bad. ‘There is my mother here, and no harm will come 
to me—unless indeed I die of pure joy. Go thou to 


218 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When the 
days are done I believe . . . nay, amsure. And 
—and then I shall lay him in thy arms, and thou wilt love 
me for ever. The train goes to-night, at midnight is it 
not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by 
cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? 
Thou wilt not stay on the road to talk to the bold white 
mem-log. Come back to me swiftly, my life.’ 

As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was 
tethered to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white- 
haired old watchman who guarded the house, and bade 
him under certain contingencies despatch the filled-up 
telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that 
could be done, and with the sensations of a man who 
has attended his own funeral Holden went away by the 
night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he 
dreaded the arrival of the telegram, and every hour of 
the night he pictured to himself the death of Ameera. 
In consequence his work for the State was not of first- 
rate quality, nor was his temper towards his colleagues 
of the most amiable. The fortnight ended without a 
sion from his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, 
Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious 
hours by a dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a 
man hears in a swoon, voices telling him how execrably 
he had performed the other man’s duties, and how he 
had endeared himself to all his associates. Then he fled 
on horseback through the night with his heart in his 
mouth. ‘There was no answer at first to his blows on 
the gate, and he had just wheeled his horse round to 
kick it in when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and 
held his stirrup. 

‘Has aught occurred?’ said Holden. 

*The news does not come from my mouth, Protector 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 219 


of the Poor, but——’ He held out his shaking hand 
as befitted the bearer of good news who is entitled to a 
reward. 

Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned 
in the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway, 
and he heard a shrill little wail that sent all the blood into 
the apple of his throat. It was anew voice, but it did not 
prove that Ameera was alive. 

‘Who is there?’ he called up the narrow brick stair- 
case. 

There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then 
the voice of the mother, tremulous with old age and 
pride—‘We be two women and—the—man—thy—-son.’ 

On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a 
naked dagger, that was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it 
broke at the hilt under his impatient heel. 

‘God is great!’ cooed Ameera in the half-light. ‘Thou 
hast taken his misfortunes on thy head.’ 

‘Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old 
woman, how is it with her?’ 

‘She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child 
is born. There is no harm; but speak softly,’ said the 
mother. 

‘It only needed thy presence to make me all well,’ 
said Ameera. ‘My king, thou hast been very long away. 
What gifts hast thou for me? Ah, ah! It is I that 
bring gifts this time. Look, my life, look. Was there 
ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear 
my arm from him.’ 

‘Rest then, and do not talk. Iam here, bachari [little 
woman].’ 

‘Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope [Pee- 
charee| between us now that nothing can break. Look 
—canst thou see in this light? He is without spot 


220 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


or blemish. Never was such a man-child. Ya illah! 
he shall be a pundit—no, a trooper of the Queen. And, 
my life, dost thou love me as well as ever, though I am 
faint and sick and worn? Answer truly.’ 

‘Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul. Lie 
still, pearl, and rest.’ | 

‘Then do not go. Sit by my side here—so. Mother, 
the lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it.’ There 
was an almost imperceptible movement on the part of 
the new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera’s arm. 
‘Aho!’ she said, her voice breaking with love. ‘The 
babe is a champion from his birth. He is kicking me 
in the side with mighty kicks. Was there ever such a 
babe! And he is ours to us—thine and mine. Put 
thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is very young, 
and men are unskilled in such matters.’ 

Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his 
fingers the downy head. 

‘He is of the faith,’ said Ameera; ‘for lying here 
in the night-watches I whispered the call to prayer and 
the profession of faith into his ears. And it is most 
marvellous that he was born upon a Friday, as I was 
born. Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost 
erip with his hands.’ 

Holden found one helpless little hand that closed 
feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his 
body till it settled about his heart. ‘Till then his sole 
thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise 
that there was some one else in the world, but he could 
not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He 
sat down to think, and Ameera dozed lightly. 

‘Get hence, sahib,’ said her mother under her breath. 
‘It is not good that she should find you here on waking. 
She must be still.’ 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 221 


‘I go,’ said Holden submissively. ‘Here be rupees. 
See that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs.’ 

The chink of the silver roused Ameera. ‘I am his 
mother, and no hireling,’ she said weakly. ‘Shall I look 
to him more or less for the sake of money? Mother, 
give it back. I have born my lord a son.’ 

The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost 
before the sentence was completed. Holden went down 
to the courtyard very softly with his heart at ease. Pir 
Khan, the old watchman, was chuckling with delight. 
‘This house is now complete,’ he said, and without further 
comment thrust into Holden’s hands the hilt of a sabre 
worn many years ago when he, Pir Khan, served the 
Queen in the police. The bleat of a tethered goat came 
from the well-kerb. 

‘There be two,’ said Pir Khan, ‘two goats of the best. 
I bought them, and they cost much money; and since 
there is no birth-party assembled their flesh will be all 
mine. Strike craftily,sahib! ’Tisan ill-balanced sabre 
at the best. Wait till they raise their heads from crop- 
ping the marigolds.’ 

‘And why?’ said Holden, bewildered. 

‘For the birth-sacrifice. What else? Otherwise the 
child being unguarded from fate may die. The Protector 
of the Poor knows the fitting words to be said.’ 

Holden had Jearned them once with little thought that 
he would ever speak them in earnest. The touch of the 
cold sabre-hilt in his palm turned suddenly to the clinging 
srip of the child upstairs—the child that was his own 
son—and a dread of loss filled him. 

‘Strike!’ said Pir Khan. ‘Never life came into the 
world but life was paid forit. See, the goats have raised 
their heads. Now! With a drawing cut!’ 

Hardly knowing what he did Holden cut twice as he 


222 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


muttered the Mahomedan prayer that runs: ‘Almighty! 
In place of this my son I offer life for life, blood for blood, 
head for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin.’ 
The waiting horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at 
the smell of the raw blood that spirted over Holden’s 
riding-boots. , 

‘Well smitten!’ said Pir Khan, wiping the sabre. ‘A 
swordsman was lost in thee. Go with a light heart, 
Heaven-born. Iam thy servant, and the servant of thy 
son. May the Presence live a thousand years and ; 
the flesh of the goats is all mine?’ Pir Khan drew Ways 
richer by a month’s pay. Holden swung himself into the 
saddle and rode off through the low-hanging wood-smoke 
of the evening. He was full of riotous exultation, alter- 
nating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards no 
particular object, that made him choke as he bent over 
the neck of his uneasy horse. ‘I never felt like this 
in my life,’ he thought. ‘Ill go to the club and pull 
myself together.’ 

A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full 
ofmen. Holden entered, eager to get to the light and the 
company of his fellows, singing at the top of his voice— 


In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet! 


‘Did you?’ said the club-secretary from his corner. 
‘Did she happen to tell you that your boots were wringing 
wet? Great goodness, man, it’s blood!’ 

‘Bosh!’ said Holden, picking his cue from the rack. 
‘May I cut in? It’s dew. I’ve been riding through 
high crops. My faith! my boots are in a mess though! 


‘And if it be a girl she shall wear a wedding-ring, 
And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king, 
With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue, 
He shall walk the quarter-deck—’ 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 223 


‘Yellow on blue—green next player,’ said the marker 
monotonously. 

‘He shall walk the quarier-deck,—Am I green, marker? 
He shall walk the quarter-deck,—eh! that’s a bad shot,— 
As his daddy used to do!’ 

‘I don’t see that you have anything to crow about,’ 
said a zealous junior civilian acidly. ‘The Government 
is not exactly pleased with your work when you relieved 
Sanders.’ 

‘Does that mean a wigging from headquarters?’ said 
Holden with an abstracted smile. ‘I think I can stand 
it.’ 

The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each 
man’s work, and steadied Holden till it was time to go 
to his dark empty bungalow, where his butler received 
him as one who knew all his affairs. Holden remained 
awake for the greater part of the night, and his dreams 
were pleasant ones. 


II 


“How old is he now?’ 

‘Ya illah! What a man’s question! He is all but 
six weeks old; and on this night I go up to the house- 
top with thee, my life, to count the stars. For that is 
auspicious. And he was born on a Friday under the 
sign of the Sun, and it has been told to me that he will 
outlive us both and get wealth. Can we wish for aught 
better, beloved?’ 

‘There is nothing better. Let us go up to the roof, 
and thou shalt count the stars—but a few only. for the 
sky is heavy with cloud.’ 

‘The winter rains are late, and maybe they come out 
of season. Come, before all the stars are hid. I have 
put on my richest jewels.’ 


224 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Thou hast forgotten the best of all.’ 

‘Ai! Ours. He comes also. He has never yet seen 
the skies.’ 

Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that led to the 
flat roof. The child, placid and unwinking, lay in the 
hollow of her right arm, gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin 
with a small skull-cap on his head. Ameera wore all 
that she valued most. The diamond nose-stud that takes 
the place of the Western patch in drawing attention to 
the curve of the nostril, the gold ornament in the centre 
of the forehead studded with tallow-drop emeralds and 
flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of beaten gold that was 
fastened round her neck by the softness of the pure metal, 
and the chinking curb-patterned silver anklets hanging 
low over the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade- 
green muslin as befitted a daughter of the Faith, and from 
shoulder to elbow and elbow to wrist ran bracelets of 
silver tied with floss silk, frail glass bangles slipped over 
the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand, and 
certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her 
country’s ornaments but, since they were Holden’s gift 
and fastened with a cunning European snap, delighted 
her immensely. 

They sat down by the low white parapet of the roof, 
overlooking the city and its lights. 

‘They are happy down there,’ said Ameera. ‘But I 
do not think that they are as happy as we. Nor do I 
think the white mem-log are as happy. And thou?’ 

‘I know they are not.’ 

‘How dost thou know?’ 

‘They give their children over to the nurses.’ 

‘I have never seen that,’ said Ameera with a sigh, 
‘nor do I wish to see. Afi !—she dropped her head on 
Holden’s shoulder,—‘I have counted forty stars, and I 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 225 


am tired. Look at the child, love of my life, he is count- 
ing too.’ 

The baby was staring with round eyes at the dark of 
the heavens. Ameera placed him in Holden’s arms, and 
he lay there without a cry. 

‘What shall we call him among ourselves?’ she said. 
‘Look! Art thou ever tired of looking? He carries thy 
very eyes. But the mouth ; 

‘Is thine, most dear. Who should know better 
than I?’ 

‘’Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! And yet it 
holds my heart between its lips. Give him to me now. 
He has been too long away.’ 

‘Nay, let him lie; he has not yet begun to cry.’ 

‘When he cries thou wilt give him back—eh? What 
a man of mankind thou art! If he cried he were only 
the dearer to me. But, my life, what little name shall 
we give him?’ 

The small body lay close to Holden’s heart. It was 
utterly helpless and very soft. He scarcely dared to 
breathe for fear of crushing it. The caged green parrot 
that is regarded as a sort of guardian-spirit in most 
native households moved on its perch and fluttered a 
drowsy wing. 

“There is the answer,’ said Holden. ‘Mian Mittu has 
spoken. He shall be the parrot. When he is ready he 
will talk mightily and run about. Mian Mittu is the 
parrot in thy—in the Mussulman tongue, is it not?’ 

“Why put me so far off?’ said Ameera fretfully. 
‘Let it be like unto some English name— but not wholly, 
For he is mine.’ 

“Then call him Tota, for that is likest English.’ 

‘Ay, Tota, and that is still the parrot. Forgive me, 
my lord, for a minute ago, but in truth he is too little te 





226 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


wear all the weight of Mian Mittu for name. He shall 
be Tota—our Tota to us. Hearest thou, O small one? 
Littlest, thou art Tota.’ She touched the child’s cheek, 
and he waking wailed, and it was necessary to return him 
to his mother, who soothed him with the wonderful rhyme 
of Aré koko, Jaré koko! which says: 


Oh crow! Gocrow! Baby’s sleeping sound, 
And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound. 
Only a penny a pound, baba, only a penny a pound. 


Reassured many times as to the price of those plums, 
Tota cuddled himself down to sleep. The two sleek, 
white well-bullocks in the courtyard were steadily chew- 
ing the cud of their evening meal; old Pir Khan squatted 
at the head of Holden’s horse, his police sabre across his 
knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked 
like a bull-frog in a pond. Ameera’s mother sat spinning 
in the lower verandah, and the wooden gate was shut and 
barred. The music of a marriage-procession came to the 
roof above the gentle hum of the city, and a string of 
flying-foxes crossed the face of the low moon. 

‘I have prayed,’ said Ameera after a long pause, ‘I 
have prayed for two things. First, that I may die in 
thy stead if thy death is demanded, and in the second 
that I may die in the place of the child. I have prayed 
to the Prophet and to Beebee Miriam [the Virgin Mary}. 
Thinkest thou either will hear?’ 

‘From thy lips who would not hear the lightest 
word?’ 

‘I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me 
sweet talk. Will my prayers be heard?’ 

‘How canI say? God is very good.’ 

‘Of that I am not sure. Listen now. When I die, 
or the child dies, what is thy fate? Living, thou wilt 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 227 


return to the bold white mem-log, for kind calls to 
kind.’ 

‘Not always.’ 

‘With a woman, no; with a man it is otherwise. 
Thou wilt in this life, later on, go back to thine own folk. 
That I could almost endure, for I should be dead. 
But in thy very death thou wilt be taken away to a 
strange place and a paradise that I do not know.’ 

‘Will it be paradise?’ 

‘Surely, for who would harm thee? But we two— 
I and the child—shall be elsewhere, and we cannot come 
to thee, nor canst thou come to us. In the old days, 
before the child was born, I did not think of these things; 
but now I think of them always. It is very hard talk.’ 

‘It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we do not 
know, but to-day and love we know well. Surely we are 
happy now.’ 

‘So happy that it were well to make our happiness 
assured. And thy Beebee Miriam should listen to me; 
for she is also a woman. But then she would envy me! 
It is not seemly for men to worship a woman.’ 

Holden laughed aloud at Ameera’s little spasm of 
jealousy. 

‘Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not turn me from 
worship of thee, then?’ 

‘Thou a worshipper! And of me? My king, for all 
thy sweet words, well I know that I am thy servant and 
thy slave, and the dust under thy feet. And I would 
not have it otherwise. See!’ 

Before Holden could prevent her she stooped forward 
and touched his feet; recovering herself with a little 
laugh she hugged Tota closer to her bosom. Then, 
almost savagely— 

‘Is it true that the bold white mem-log live for three 


228 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


times the length of my life? Is it true that they make 
their marriages not before they are old women?’ 

‘They marry as do others—when they are women.’ 

‘That I know, but they wed when they are twenty-five. 
Is that true?’ 

‘That is true.’ 

‘Ya illah! At twenty-five! Who would of his own 
will take a wife even of eighteen? She is a woman— 
aging every hour. Twenty-five! I shall be an old 
woman at that age, and—— Those mem-log remain 
young for ever. How I hate them!’ 

‘What have they to do with us?’ 

‘I cannot tell. I know only that there may now 
be alive on this earth a woman ten years older than I 
who may come to thee and take thy love ten years after 
I am an old woman, gray-headed, and the nurse of 
Tota’s son. That is unjust and evil. They should die 
too.’ 

‘Now, for all thy years thou art a child, and shalt be 
picked up and carried down the staircase.’ 

‘Tota! Have a care for Tota, my lord! Thou at 
feast art as foolish as any babe!’ Ameera tucked Tota 
out of harm’s way in the hollow of her neck, and was 
carried downstairs laughing in Holden’s arms, while Tota 
opened his eyes and smiled after the manner of the lesser 
angels. 

He was a silent infant, and, almost before Holden 
could realise that he was in the world, developed into a 
small gold-coloured little god and unquestioned despot of 
the house overlooking the city. ‘Those were months of 
absolute happiness to Holden and Ameera—happiness 
withdrawn from the world, shut in behind the wooden 
gate that Pir Khan guarded. By day Holden did his 
work with an immense pity for such as were not so foi- 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 229 


tunate as himself, and a sympathy for small children that 
amazed and amused many mothers at the little station- 
gatherings. At nightfall he returned to Ameera,— 
Ameera, full of the wondrous doings of Tota; how he had 
been seen to clap his hands together and move his fingers 
with intention and purpose—which was manifestly a 
miracle—how later, he had of his own initiative crawled 
out of his low bedstead on to the floor and swayed on 
both feet for the space of three breaths. 

‘And they were long breaths, for my heart stood still 
with delight,’ said Ameera. 

Then Tota took the beasts into his councils—the well- 
bullocks, the little gray squirrels, the mongoose that 
lived in a hole near the well, and especially Mian Mittu, 
the parrot, whose tail he grievously pulled, and Mian 
Mittu screamed till Ameera and Holden arrived. 

‘O villain! Child of strength! This to thy brother 
on the house-top! Tobah, tobah! Fie! Fie! But I 
know a charm to make him wise as Suleiman and Afla- 
toun [Solomon and Plato]. Now look,’ said Ameera. 
She drew from an embroidered bag a handful of almonds. 
‘See! we count seven. In the name of God!’ 

She placed Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, on 
the top of his cage, and seating herself between the babe 
and the bird she cracked and peeled an almond less white 
than her teeth. ‘This is a true charm, my life, and do 
not laugh. See! I give the parrot one half and Tota the - 
other.’ Mian Mittu with careful beak took his share 
from between Ameera’s lips, and she kissed the other 
half into the mouth of the child, who ate it slowly with 
wondering eyes. ‘This I will do each day of seven, and 
without doubt he who is ours will be a bold speaker and 
wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt thou be when thou art a man 
and I am gray-headed?’ Tota tucked his fat legs into 


230 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


adorable creases. He could crawl, but he was not going 
to waste the spring of his youth in idle speech. He 
wanted Mian Mittu’s tail to tweak. — 

When he was advanced to the dignity of a silver belt 
—which, with a magic square engraved on silver and 
hung round his neck, made up the greater part of his 
clothing—he staggered on a perilous journey down the 
garden to Pir Khan and proffered him all his jewels in 
exchange for one little ride on Holden’s horse, having 
seen his mother’s mother chaffering with pedlars in the 
verandah. Pir Khan wept and set the untried feet 
on his own gray head in sign of fealty, and brought 
the bold adventurer to his mother’s arms, vowing 
that Tota would be a leader of men ere his beard was 
grown. 

One hot evening, while he sat on the roof between his 
father and mother watching the never-ending warfare of 
the kites that the city boys flew, he demanded a kite of 
his own with Pir Khan to fly it, because he had a fear 
of dealing with anything larger than himself, and when 
Holden called him a ‘spark,’ he rose to his feet and 
answered slowly in defence of his new-found individual- 
ity, ‘Hum park nahin hai. Hum admi hai |i am ne 
spark, but a man|].’ 

The protest made Holden choke and devote himself 
very seriously to a consideration of Tota’s future. He 
need hardly have taken the trouble. The delight of that 
life was too perfect to endure. Therefore it was taken 
away as many things are taken away in India—suddenly 
and without warning. The little lord of the house, as Pir 
Khan called him, grew sorrowful and complained of pains 
who had never known the meaning of pain. Ameera, 
wild with terror, watched him through the night, and in 
the dawning of the second day the life was shaken out of 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 23% 


him by fever—the seasonal autumn fever. It seemed 
altogether impossible that he could die, and neither 
Ameera nor Holden at first believed the evidence of the 
little body on the bedstead. Then Ameera beat her head 
against the wall and would have flung herself down the 
well in the garden had Holden not restrained her by 
main force. 

One mercy only was granted to Holden. He rode ta 
his office in broad daylight and found waiting him an 
unusually heavy mail that demanded concentrated atten- 
tion and hard work. He was not, however, alive to this 
kindness of the gods. 


III 


The first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk 
pinch. The wrecked body does not send in its protest 
to the soul till ten or fifteen seconds later. Holden 
realised his pain slowly, exactly as he had realised his 
happiness, and with the same imperious necessity for 
hiding all trace of it. In the beginning he only felt that 
there had been a loss, and that Ameera needed com- 
forting, where she sat with her head on her knees shiver- 
ing as Mian Mittu from the house-top called, Tota! Tota! 
Tota! Later all his world and the daily life of it rose 
up to hurt him. It was an outrage that any one of the 
children at the band-stand in the evening should be 
alive and clamorous, when his own child lay dead. It 
was more than mere pain when one of them touched him, 
and stories told by over-fond fathers of their children’s 
latest performances cut him to the quick. He could not 
declare his pain. He had neither help, comfort, nor 
sympathy; and Ameera at the end of each weary day 
would lead him through the hell of self-questioning re- 
proach which is reserved for those who have lost a child, 


232 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


and befieve that with a little—just a little—more care 
it might have been saved. 

‘Perhaps,’ Ameera would say, ‘I did not take suf- 
ficient heed. Did I, or did I not? ‘The sun on the 
roof that day when he played so long alone and I was— 
ahi! braiding my hair—it may be that the sun then bred 
the fever. If I had warned him from the sun he might 
have lived. But, oh my life, say that I am guiltless! 
Thou knowest that I loved him as I love thee. Say 
that there is no blame on me, or I shall die—I shail 
die!’ 

“There is no blame,—before God, none. It was written 
and how could we do aught tosave? What has been, has 
been. Let it go, beloved.’ 

‘He was all my heart to me. How can [ let the’ 
thought go when my arm tells me every night that he is 
not here? Afi! Ali! O Tota, come back to me— 
come back again, and let us be all together as it was 
before!’ 

‘Peace, peace! For thine own sake, and for mine also, 
if thou lovest me—rest.’ 

‘By this I know thou dost not care; and how shouldst 
thou? ‘The white men have hearts of stone and souls of 
iron. Oh, that I had married a man of mine own people 
—though he beat me—and had never eaten the bread of 
an alien!’ 

‘Am I an alien—mother of my son?’ 

‘What else—Sahib? . . . Oh, forgive me—for- 
give! The death has driven me mad. Thou art the 
life of my heart, and the light of my eyes, and the breath 
of my life, and—and I have put thee from me, though it 
was but for a moment. If thou goest away, to whom 
shall I look for help? Do not be angry. Indeed, it 
was the pain that spoke and not thy slave.’ 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 233 


‘I know, I know. We be two who were three. The 
greater need therefore that we should be one.’ 

They were sitting on the roof as of custom. The night 
was a warm one in early spring, and sheet-lightning was 
dancing on the horizon to a broken tune played by far-off 
thunder. Ameera settled herself in Holden’s arms. 

‘The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the rain, 
and I—I am afraid. It was not like this when we 
counted the stars. But thou lovest me as much as 
before, though a bond is taken away? Answer!’ 

‘Tf love more because a new bond has come out of 
the sorrow that we have eaten together, and that thou 
knowest.’ 

‘Yea, I knew,’ said Ameera in a very small whisper. 
‘But it is good to hear thee say so, my life, who art so 
strong to help. I will be a child no more, but a woman 
and an aid to thee. Listen! Give me my sifar and I 
will sing bravely.’ 

She took the light silver-studded sitar and began 
a song of the great hero Rajah Rasalu. The hand failed 
on the strings, the tune halted, checked, and at a low 
note turned off to the poor little nursery-rhyme about 
the wicked crow— 


And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound. 
Only a penny a pound, baba—only 


Then came the tears, and the piteous rebellion against 
fate till she slept, moaning a little in her sleep, with 
the right arm thrown clear of the body as though it pro- 
tected something that was not there. It was after this 
night that life became a little easier for Holden. The 
ever-present pain of loss drove him into his work, and 
the work repaid him by filling up his mind for nine or 
ten hours a day. Ameera sat alone in the house and 


234 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


brooded, but grew happier when she understood that 
Holden was more at ease, according to the custom of 
women. They touched happiness again, but this time 
with caution. 

‘It was because we loved Tota that he died. The 
jealousy of God was upon us,’ said Ameera. ‘I have 
hung up a large black jar before our window to turn the 
evil eye from us, and we must make no protestations of 
delight, but go softly underneath the stars, lest God find 
us out. Is that not good talk, worthless one?’ 

She had shifted the accent on the word that means 
‘beloved,’ in proof of the sincerity of her purpose. But 
the kiss that followed the new christening was a thing 
that any deity might have envied. They went about 
henceforward saying, ‘It is naught, it is naught;’ and 
hoping that all the Powers heard. 

The Powers were busy on other things. They had 
allowed thirty million people four years of plenty wherein 
men fed well and the crops were certain, and the birth- 
rate rose year by year; the districts reported a purely 
agricultural population varying from nine hundred to 
two thousand to the square mile of the overburdened 
earth; and the Member for Lower Tooting, wandering 
about India in pot-hat and frock-coat, talked largely of 
the benefits of British rule and suggested as the one 
thing needful the establishment of a duly qualified elec- 
toral system and a general bestowal of the franchise. His 
long-suffering hosts smiled and made him welcome, and 
when he paused to admire, with pretty picked words, 
the blossom of the blood-red dhak-tree that had flowered 
untimely for a sign of what was coming, they smiled more 
than ever. 

It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen, 
staying at the club for a day, who lightly told a tale 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 235 


that made Holden’s blood run cold as he overheard the 
end. 

‘He won’t bother any one any more. Never saw a 
man so astonished in my life. By Jove, I thought he 
meant to ask a question in the House about it. Fellow- 
passenger in his ship—dined next him—bowled over by 
cholera and died in eighteen hours. You needn’t laugh, 
you fellows. The Member for Lower Tooting is awfully 
angry about it; but he’s more scared. I think he’s going 
to take his enlightened self out of India.’ 

‘I’d give a good deal if he were knocked over. It 
might keep a few vestrymen of his kidney to their own 
parish. But what’s this about cholera? It’s full early 
for anything of that kind,’ said the warden of an un- 
profitable salt-lick. 

‘Don’t know,’ said the Deputy Commissioner reflect- 
ively. ‘We’ve got locusts with us. There’s sporadic 
cholera all along the north—at least we’re calling it 
sporadic for decency’s sake. The spring crops are short 
in five districts, and nobody seems to know where the 
rains are. It’s nearly March now. I don’t want to 
scare anybody, but it seems to me that Nature’s going to 
audit her accounts with a big red pencil this summer.’ 

‘Just when I wanted to take leave, too!’ said a voice 
across the room. 

“There won’t be much leave this year, but there ought 
to be a great deal of promotion. I’ve come in to persuade 
the Government to put my pet canal on the list of famine- 
relief works. It’s an ill-wind that blows no good. I 
shall get that canal finished at last.’ 

‘Is it the old programme then,’ said Holden; ‘famine, 
fever, and cholera?’ 

‘Oh no. Only local scarcity and an unusual preva- 
lence of seasonal sickness. You'll find it all in the 


236 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


reports if you live till next year. You’re a lucky chap. 
You haven’t got a wife to send out of harm’s way. The 
hill-stations ought to be full of women this year.’ 

‘I think you’re inclined to exaggerate the talk in the 
bazars,’ said a young civilian in the Secretariat. ‘Now I 
have observed ——’ 

‘I daresay you have,’ said the Deputy Commissioner, 
‘but you’ve a great deal more to observe, my son. In 
the meantime, I wish to observe to you——’ and he 
drew him aside to discuss the construction of the canal 
that was so dear to his heart. Holden went to his bun- 
galow and began to understand that he was not alone in 
the world, and also that he was afraid for the sake of 
another,—which is the most soul-satisfying fear known 
to man. 

Two months later, as the Deputy had foretold, Nature 
began to audit her accounts with a red pencil. On the 
heels of the spring-reapings came a cry for bread, and the 
Government, which had decreed that no man should die 
of want, sent wheat. Then came the cholera from all 
four quarters of the compass. It struck a pilgrim-gather- 
ing of half a million at a sacred shrine. Many died at 
the feet of their god; the others broke and ran over the 
face of the land carrying the pestilence with them. It 
smote a walled city and killed two hundred a day. The 
people crowded the trains, hanging on to the footboards 
and squatting on the roofs of the carriages, and the 
cholera followed them, for at each station they dragged 
out the dead and the dying. They died by the roadside, 
and the horses of the Englishmen shied at the corpses in 
the grass. The rains did not come, and the earth turned 
to iron lest man should escape death by hiding in her. 
The English sent their wives away to the hills and went 
abcut their work, coming forward as they were bidden to 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 237 


fill the gaps in the fighting-line. Holden, sick with fear 
of losing his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best 
to persuade Ameera to go away with her mother to the 
Himalayas. } 

“Why should I go?’ said she one evening on the 
roof. 

‘There is sickness, and people are dying, and all the 
white mem-log have gone.’ 

‘All of them?’ 

‘All—unless perhaps there remain some old scald- 
head who vexes her husband’s heart by running risk of 
death.’ 

‘Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou must not 
abuse her, for I will be a scald-head too. I am glad all 
the bold mem-log are gone.’ 

‘Do I speak to a woman or a babe? Go to the hills 
and J will see to it that thou goest like a queen’s daughter. 
Think, child. In a red-lacquered bullock-cart, veiled 
and curtained, with brass peacocks upon the pole and 
red cloth hangings. I will send two orderlies for guard, 
and j 

“Peace! Thou art the babe in speaking thus. What 
use are those toys to me? He would have patted 
the bullocks and played with the housings. For his 
sake, perhaps,—thou hast made me very English—I 
might have gone. Now, I will not. Let the mem-log 
run.’ 

‘Their husbands are sending them, beloved.’ 

‘Very good talk. Since when hast thou been my 
husband to tell me what to do? I have but borne thee 
a son. Thou art only all the desire of my soul to me. 
How shall I depart when I know that if evil befall thee 
by the breadth of so much as my littlest finger-nail— 
is that not small?—I should be aware of it though I 





236 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


were in paradise. And here, this summer thou mayest 
die—ai, janee, die! and in dying they might call to tend 
thee a white woman, and she would rob me in the last of 
thy love!’ 

‘But love is not born in a moment or on a death-bed!’ 

‘What dost thou know of love, stoneheart? Sha 
would take thy thanks at least and, by God and the 
Prophet and Beebee Miriam the mother of thy Prophet, 
that I will never endure. My lord and my love, let 
there be no more foolish talk of going away. Where 
thou art, Iam. It is enough.’ She put an arm round 
his neck and a hand on his mouth. 

There are not many happinesses so complete as those 
that are snatched under the shadow of the sword. They 
sat together and laughed, calling each other openly by 
every pet name that could move the wrath of the gods. 
The city below them was locked up in its own torments. 
Sulphur fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the 
Hindu temples screamed and bellowed, for the gods were 
inattentive in those days. There was a service in the 
great Mahomedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the 
minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing 
in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a 
mother who had lost a child and was calling for its re- 
turn. In the gray dawn they saw the dead borne out 
through the city gates, each litter with its own little 
knot of mourners. Wherefore they kissed each other 
and shivered. 

It was a red and heavy audit, for the land was very 
sick and needed a little breathing-space ere the torrent 
of cheap life should flood it anew. The children of 
immature fathers and undeveloped mothers made no 
resistance. ‘They were cowed and sat still, waiting till 
the sword should be sheathed in November if it were 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 230 


so willed. There were gaps among the English, but 
the gaps were filled. The work of superintending famine- 
relief, cholera-sheds, medicine-distribution, and what 
little sanitation was possible, went forward because it 
was so ordered. 

Holden had been told to keep himself in readiness to 
move to replace the next man who should fall. There 
were twelve hours in each day when he could not see 
Ameera, and she might die in three. He was considering 
what his pain would be if he could not see her for three 
months, or if she died out of his sight. He was absolutely 
’ certain that her death would be demanded—so certain 
that when he looked up from the telegram and saw Pir 
Khan breathless in the doorway, he laughed aloud. 
‘And?’ said he, 

‘When there is a cry in the night and the spirit flut- - 
ters into the throat, who has a charm that will restore? 
Come swiftly, Heaven-born! It is the black cholera.’ 

Holden galloped to his home. The sky was heavy 
with clouds, for the long-deferred rains were near and the 
heat was stifling. Ameera’s mother met him in the 
courtyard, whimpering, ‘She is dying. She is nursing 
herself into death. She is all but dead. What shall I dc, 
sahib ?’ 

Ameera was ee in the room in which Tota had 
been born. She made no sign when Holden entered, 
because the human soul is a very lonely thing and, when 
it is getting ready to go away, hides itself in a misty 
borderland where the living may not follow. The black 
cholera does its work quietly and without explanation. 
Ameera was being thrust out of life as though the Angel 
of Death had himself put his hand upon her. The quick. 
breathing seemed to show that she was either afraid or in 
pain, but neither eyes nor mouth gave any answer te 





240 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Holden’s kisses. There was nothing to be said or done. 
Holden could only wait and suffer. The first drops of 
the rain began to fall on the roof, and he could hear 
shouts of joy in the parched city. 

The soul came back a little and the lips moved. 
Holden bent down to listen. ‘Keep nothing of mine,’ 
said Ameera. ‘Take no hair from my head. She would 
make thee burn it later on. That flame I should feel. 
Lower! Stoop lower! Remember only that I was thine 
and bore thee a son. Though thou wed a white woman 
to-morrow, the pleasure of receiving in thy arms thy first 
son is taken from thee forever. Remember me when thy 
son 1s born—the one that shall carry thy name before all 
men. His misfortunes beon my head. I bear witness— 
I bear witness’—the lips were forming the words on his 
ear—‘ that there is no God but—thee, beloved!’ 

Then she died. Holden sat still, and all thought was 
taken from him,—till he heard Ameera’s mother lift the 
curtain. 

‘Is she dead, sahib ?’ 

‘She is dead.’ 

‘Then I will mourn, and afterwards take an inventory 
of the furniture in this house. For that will be mine. 
The sahib does not mean to resume it? It is so little, so 
very little, sahib. and Iam an old woman. I would like 
to lie softly.’ 

‘For the mercy of God be silent a while. Go out and 
mourn where I cannot hear.’ 

‘Sahib, she wiil be buried in four hours.’ 

‘I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken away. 
That matter isin thy hands. Look to it, that the bed on 
which—on which she lies--—’ 

‘Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. I have 
long desired-—~ ° 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 241 


‘That the bed is left here untouched for my disposal. 
All else in the house is thine. Hire a cart, take every- 
thing, go hence, and before sunrise let there be nothing 
in this house but that which I have ordered thee to 
respect.’ 

‘I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the 
days of mourning, and the rains have just broken. 
Whither shail I go?’ 

‘What is that to me? My order is that there is a 
going. The house-gear is worth a thousand rupees and 
my orderly shall bring thee a hundred rupees to-night.’ 

“That is very little. Think of the cart-hire.’ 

‘It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with speed. 
() woman, get hence and leave me with my dead!’ 

The mother shuffled down the staircase, and in her 
anxiety to take stock of the house-fittings forgot to 
mourn. Holden stayed by Ameera’s side and the rain 
roared on the roof. He could not think connectedly 
by reason of the noise, though he made many attempts to 
doso. Then four sheeted ghosts glided dripping into the 
room and stared at him through their veils. They were 
the washers of the dead. Holden left the room and went 
out to his horse. He had come in a dead, stifling calm 
through ankle-deep dust. He found the courtyard a rain- 
lashed pond alive with frogs; a torrent of yellow water ran 
under the gate, and a roaring wind drove the bolts of the 
rain like buckshot against the mud-walls. Pir Khan was 
shivering in his little hut by the gate, and the horse was 
stamping uneasily in the water. 

‘I have been told the sahib’s order,’ said Pir Khan. 
‘It is well. This house is now desolate. I go also, for 
my monkey-face would be a reminder of that which has 
been. Concerning the bed, I will bring that to thy 
house yonder in the morning; but remember, savib, 


242 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


it will be to thee a knife turning in a green wound, 
I go upon a pilgrimage, and I will take no money. 
I have grown fat in the protection of the Presence 
whose sorrow is my sorrow. For the last time I hold 
bus stirrup.’ 

He touched Holden’s foot with both hands and the 
horse sprang out into the road, where the creaking 
bamboos were whipping the sky and all the frogs were 
chuckling. Holden could not see for the rain in his 
face. He put his hands before his eyes and muttered— 

‘Oh you brute! You utter brute!’ 

The news of his trouble was already in his bungalow. 
He read the knowledge in his butler’s eyes when Ahmed 
Khan brought in food, and for the first and last time in 
his life laid a hand upon his master’s shoulder, saying, 
‘Eat, safib, eat. Meat is good against sorrow. I also 
have known. Moreover the shadows come and go, 
saiib; the shadows come and go. These be curried 
eggs.’ 

Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The heavens 
sent down eight inches of rain in that night and washed 
the earth clean. The waters tore down walls, broke 
roads, and scoured open the shallow graves on the 
Mahomedan burying-ground. Ali next day it rained, 
and Holden sat still in his house considering his sorrow. 
On the morning of the third day he received a telegram 
which said only, ‘Ricketts, Myndonie. Dying. Holden 
relieve. Immediate.’ Then he thought that before he 
departed he would look at the house wherein he had been 
master and lord. There was a break in the weather, 
and the rank earth steamed with vapour. 

He found that the rains had torn down the mud 
pillars of the gateway, and the heavy wooden gate that 
had guarded his life hung lazily from one hinge. There 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 243 


was grass three inches high in the courtyard; Pir Khan’s 
lodge was empty, and the sodden thatch sagged between 
the beams. A gray squirrel was in possession of the 
verandah, as if the house had been untenanted for thirty 
years instead of three days. Ameera’s mother had 
removed everything except some mildewed matting. 
The tick-tick of the little scorpions as they hurried across 
the floor was the only sound in the house. Ameera’s 
room and the other one where Tota had lived were heavy 
with mildew; and the narrow staircase leading to the 
roof was streaked and stained with rain-borne mud. 
Holden saw all these things, and came out again to meet 
in the road Durga Dass, his landlord,—portly, affable, 
clothed in white muslin, and driving a Cee-spring buggy. 
He was overlooking his property to see how the roofs 
stood the stress of the first rains. 

‘I have heard,’ said he, ‘you will not take this place 
any more, sahib?’ 

‘What are you going to do with it?’ 

‘Perhaps I shall let it again.’ 

‘Then I will keep it on while I am away.’ 

Durga Dass was silent for some time. ‘You shall 
not take it on, sakib, he said. ‘When I was a young 
man I also——, but to-day Iam a member of the Munic- 
ipality. Ho! Ho! No. When the birds have gone 
what need to keep the nest? I will have it pulled down 
—the timber will sell for something always. It shall be 
pulled down, and the Municipality shall make a road 
across, as they desire, from the burning-ghat to the 
city wall, so that no man may say where this house 
stood.’ 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 


The sky is lead and our faces are red, 

And the gates of Hell are opened and riven, 

And the winds of Hell are loosened and driven, 
And the dust flies up in the face of Heaven, 

And the clouds come down in a fiery sheet, 
Heavy to raise and hard to be borne. 

And the soul of man is turned from his meat, 
Turned from the trifles for which he has striven 

Sick in his body, and heavy hearted, 

And his soul flies up like the dust in the sheet 

Breaks from his flesh and is gone and departed, 
As the blasts they blow on the cholera-horn. 

Himalayan. 


Four men, each entitled to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness,’ sat at a table playing whist. The thermom- 
eter marked—for them—one hundred and one degrees 
of heat. The room was darkened till it was only just 
possible to distinguish the pips of the cards and the very 
white faces of the players. A tattered, rotten punkah of 
whitewashed calico was puddling the hot air and whining 
dolefully at each stroke. Outside lay gloom of a Novem- 
ber day in London. There was neither sky, sun, nor 
horizon,—nothing but a brown purple haze of heat. It 
was as though the earth were dying of apoplexy. 

From time to time clouds of tawny dust rose from 
the ground without wind or warning, flung themselves 
tablecloth-wise among the tops of the parched trees, 
and came down again. Then a whirling dust-devil would 
scutter across the plain for a couple of miles, break, and 


244 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 245 


fall outward, though there was nothing to check its flight 
save a long low line of piled railway-sleepers white with 
the dust, a cluster of huts made of mud, condemned rails, 
and canvas, and the one squat four-roomed bungalow 
that belonged to the assistant engineer in charge of a 
section of the Gaudhari State line then under construc- 
tion. 

The four, stripped to the thinnest of sleeping-suits, 
played whist crossly, with wranglings as to leads and 
returns. It was not the best kind of whist, but they had 
taken some trouble to arrive at it. Mottram of the 
Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred 
miles from his lonely post in the desert since the night 
before; Lowndes of the Civil Service, on special duty in 
the political department, had come as far to escape for an 
instant the miserable intrigues of an impoverished native 
State whose king alternately fawned and blustered for 
more money from the pitiful revenues contributed by 
hard-wrung peasants and despairing camel-breeders; 
Spurstow, the doctor of the line, had left a cholera- 
stricken camp of coolies to look after itself for forty-eight 
hours while he associated with white men once more. 
Hummil, the assistant engineer, was the host. He stood 
fast and received his friends thus every Sunday if they 
could come in. When one of them failed to appear, he 
would send a telegram to his last address, in order that 
he might know whether the defaulter were dead or alive. 
There are very many places in the East where it is not 
good or kind to let your acquaintances drop out of sight 
even for one short week. 

The players were not conscious of any special regard 
for each other. They squabbled whenever they met; but 
they ardently desired to meet, as men without water 
desire to drink. They were lonely folk who understood 


246 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the dread meaning of loneliness. They were all under 
thirty years of age,—which is too soon for any man to 
possess that knowledge. 

‘Pilsener?’ said Spurstow, after the second rubber, 
mopping his forehead. 

‘Beer’s out, I’m sorry to say, and there’s hardly 
enough soda-water for to-night,’ said Hummil. 

‘What filthy bad management!’ Spurstow snarled. 

‘Can’t help it. I’ve written and wired; but the trains 
don’t come through regularly yet. Last week the ice ran 
out,—as Lowndes knows.’ 

‘Glad I didn’t come. I could ha’ sent you some if I 
had known, though. Phew! it’s too hot to go on playing 
bumblepuppy.’ This with a savage scowl at Lowndes, 
who only laughed. He was a hardened offender. 

Mottram rose from the table and looked out of a 
chink in the shutters. 

‘What a sweet day!’ said he. 

The company yawned all together and betook them- 
selves to an aimless investigation of all Hummil’s pos- 
sessions,— guns, tattered novels, saddlery, spurs, and the 
like. They had fingered them a score of times before, 
but there was really nothing else to do. 

‘Got anything fresh?’ said Lowndes. 

‘Last week’s Gazette of India, and a cutting from a 
home paper. My father sent it out. It’s rather 
amusing.’ 

‘One of those vestrymen that call ’emselves M.P.’s 
again, is it?’ said Spurstow, who read his newspapers 
when he could get them. 

‘Yes. Listen to this. It’s to your address, Lowndes. 
The man was making a speech to his constituents, and he 
piled it on. Here’s a sample: “‘And I assert unhesita- 
tingly that the Civil Service in India is the preserve— 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 247 


the pet preserve—of the aristocracy of England. What 
does the democracy—what do the masses—get from that 
country, which we have step by step fraudulently an- 
nexed? I answer, nothing whatever. It is farmed with 
a single eye to their own interests by the scions of the 
aristocracy. They take good care to maintain their 
lavish scale of incomes, to avoid or stifle any inquiries 
into the nature and conduct of their administration, 
while they themselves force the unhappy peasant te 
pay with the sweat of his brow for all the luxuries in 
which they are lapped.’ Hummil waved the cutting 
above his head. ‘’Ear! ’ear!’ said his audience. 

Then Lowndes, meditatively: ‘I’d give—Id give three 
months’ pay to have that gentleman spend one month 
with me and see how the free and independent native 
prince works things. Old Timbersides’—this was his 
flippant title for an honoured and decorated feudatory 
prince—‘has been wearing my life out this week past for 
money. By Jove, his latest performance was to send 
me one of his women as a bribe!’ 

‘Good for you! Did you accept it?’ said Mottram. 

‘No. I rather wish I had, now. She was a pretty 
little person, and she yarned away to me about the hor- 
rible destitution among the king’s women-folk. The 
darlings haven’t had any new clothes for nearly a month, 
and the old man wants to buy anew drag from Calcutta,— 
solid silver railings and silver lamps, and trifles of that 
kind. Ive tried to make him understand that he has 
played the deuce with the revenues for the last twenty 
years and must go slow. He can’t see it.’ 

‘But he has the ancestral treasure-vaults to draw on. 
There must be three millions at least in jewels and coin 
under his palace,’ said Hummil. 

‘Catch a native king disturbing the family treasure! 


448 | LIFE’S HANDICAP 


The priests forbid it except as the last resort. Old 
‘Timbersides has added something like a quarter of a 
million to the deposit in his reign.’ 

‘Where the mischief does it all come from?’ said 
Mottram. 

‘The country. The state of the people is enough to 
make you sick. I’ve known the tax-men wait by a 
milch-camel till the foal was born and then hurry off the 
mother for arrears. And what can I dop I can’t get 
the court clerks to give me any accounts; I can’t raise 
anything more than a fat smile from the commander-in- 
chief when I find out the troops are three months in 
arrears; and old Timbersides begins to weep when I 
speak tohim. He has taken to the King’s Peg heavily,— 
liqueur brandy for whisky, and Heidsieck for soda-water.’ 

‘That’s what the Raoof Jubelatookto. Even a native 
can’t last long at that,’ said Spurstow. ‘He'll go out.’ 

‘And a good thing, too. Then I suppose we’ll have 
a council of regency, and a tutor for the young prince, 
and hand him back his kingdom with ten years’ accu- 
mulations.’ 

“Whereupon that young prince, having been taught all 
the vices of the English, will play ducks and drakes with 
the money and undo ten years’ work in eighteen months. 
Pve seen that business before,’ said Spurstow. ‘I should 
tackle the king with a light hand, if I were you, Lowndes. 
They’ll hate you quite enough under any circumstances.’ 

‘That’s all very well. The man who looks on can 
talk about the light hand; but you can’t clean a pig-stye 
with a pen dipped in rose-water. I know my risks; but 
nothing has happened yet. My servant’s an old Pathan, 
and he cooks for me. They are hardly likely to bribe 
him, and I don’t accept food from my true friends, as. 
they call themselves. Oh, but it’s weary work! Td 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 249 


sooner be with you, Spurstow. There’s shooting near 
your camp.’ 

‘Would you? I don’t think it. About fifteen deaths 
a day don’t incite a man to shoot anything but himself. 
And the worst of it is that the poor devils look at you as 
though you ought to save them. Lord knows, I’ve tried 
everything. My last attempt was empirical, but it 
pulled an old man through. He was brought to me ap- 
parently past hope, and I gave him gin and Worcester 
sauce with cayenne. It cured him; but I don’t recom- 
mend it.’ 

‘How do the cases run generally?’ said Hummil. 

‘Very simply indeed. Chlorodyne, opium pill, chloro- 
dyne, collapse, nitre, bricks to the feet, and then—the 
burning-ghat. The last seems to be the only thing that 
stops the trouble. It’s black cholera, you know. Poor 
devils! But, I will say, little Bunsee Lal, my apothe- 
cary, works like a demon. I’ve recommended him for 
promotion if he comes through it all alive.’ 

‘And what are your chances, old man?’ said Mottram. 

‘Don’t know; don’t care much; but I’ve sent the 
letter in. What are you doing with yourself generally?’ 

‘Sitting under a table in the tent and spitting on the 
sextant to keep it cool,’ said the man of the survey. 
‘Washing my eyes to avoid ophthalmia, which I shall 
certainly get, and trying to make a sub-surveyor under- 
stand that an error of five degrees in an angle isn’t quite 
so small as it looks. I’m altogether alone, y’ know, and 
shall be till the end of the hot weather.’ 

‘Hummil’s the lucky man,’ said Lowndes, flinging 
himself into a long chair. ‘He has an actual roof—torn 
as to the ceiling-cloth, but still a roof—over his head. 
He sees one train daily. He can get beer and soda-water 
and ice ’em when God is good. He has books, pictures,” 


‘250 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


—they were torn from the Graphic,—‘and the society of 
the excellent sub-contractor Jevins, besides the pleasure 
of receiving us weekly.’ 

Hummil smiled grimly. ‘Yes, I’m the lucky man, I 
suppose. Jevins is luckier.’ 

‘How? Not——’ 

‘Yes. Went out. Last Monday.’ 

‘By his own hand?’ said Spurstow quickly, hinting 
the suspicion that was in everybody’s mind. ‘There was 
no cholera near Hummil’s section. Even fever gives a 
man at least a week’s grace, and sudden death generally 
implied self-slaughter. 

‘I judge no man this weather,’ said Hummil. ‘He 
had a touch of the sun, I fancy; for last week, after you 
fellows had left, he came into the verandah and told me 
that he was going home to see his wife, in Market Street, 
Liverpool, that evening. 

‘I got the apothecary in to look at him, and we tried 
to make him lie down. After an hour or two he rubbed 
his eyes and said he believed he had had a fit,—hoped he 
hadn’t said anything rude. Jevins had a great idea of 
bettering himself socially. He was very like Chucks in 
his language.’ 

‘Well?’ 

‘Then he went to his own bungalow and began clean- 
ing a rifle. He told the servant that he was going to 
shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with 
the trigger, and shot himself through the head—accident- 
ally. ‘The apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and 
Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I’d have wired to 
you, Spurstow, if you could have done anything.’ 

“You’re a queer chap,’ said Mottram. ‘If you’d killed 
the man yourself you couldn’t have been more quiet about 
the business.’ 





AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE ost 


‘Good Lord! what does it matter?’ said Hummil 
calmly. ‘I’ve got to do a lot of his overseeing work in 
addition to my own. I’m the only person that suffers. 
Jevins is out of it,—by pure accident, of course, but out 
ofit. The apothecary was going to write a long screed on 
suicide. Trust a babu to drivel when he gets the chance.’ 

‘Why didn’t you let it go in as suicide?’ said Lowndes. 

‘No direct proof. A man hasn’t many privileges in 
this country, but he might at least be allowed to mis- 
handle his own rifle. Besides, some day I may need a 
man to smother up an accident to myself. Live and 
let live. Die and let die.’ 

‘You take a pill,’ said Spurstow, who had been watch- 
ing Hummil’s white face narrowly. ‘Take a pill, and 
don’t be an ass. That sort of talk is skittles. Anyhow, 
suicide is shirking your work. If I were Job ten times 
over, I should be so interested in what was going to 
happen next that I'd stay on and watch.’ 

‘Ah! I’ve lost that curiosity,’ said Hummil. 

‘Liver out of order?’ said Lowndes feelingly. 

‘No. Can’t sleep. That’s worse.’ 

‘By Jove, it is!’ said Mottram. ‘I’m that way every 
now and then, and the fit has to wear itself out. What 
do you take for it?’ 

‘Nothing. What’s the use? I haven’t had ten min- 
utes’ sleep since Friday morning.’ 

‘Poor chap! Spurstow, you ought to attend to this,’ 
said Mottram. ‘Now you mention it, your eyes are 
rather gummy and swollen.’ 

Spurstow, still watching Hummil, laughed lightly. 
‘I'll patch him up, later on. Is it too hot, do you think, 
to go for a ride?’ 

“Where to?’ said Lowndes wearily. ‘We shall have 
to go away at eight, and there’ll be riding enough for us 


“ase LIFE’S HANDICAP 


then. I hate a horse, when I have to use him as a 
mecessity. Oh, heavens! what is there to do?’ 

‘Begin whist again, at chick points [‘a chick’ is sup- 
posed to be eight shillings] and a gold mohur on the rub,’ 
said Spurstow promptly. 

‘Poker. A month’s pay all round for the pool,—no 
limit,—and_ fifty-rupee raises. Somebody would be 
broken before we got up,’ said Lowndes. 

‘Can’t say that it would give me any pleasure to break 
any man in this company,’ said Mottram. ‘There isn’t 
enough excitement in it, and it’s foolish.” He crossed 
ever to the worn and battered little camp-piano,—wreck- 
age of a married household that had once held the 
bungalow,—and opened the case. 

‘It’s used up long ago,’ said Hummil. ‘The servants 
have picked it to pieces.’ 

The piano was indeed hopelessly out of order, but 
Mottram managed to bring the rebellious notes into a sort 
of agreement, and there rose from the ragged keyboard 
something that might once have been the ghost of a 
popular music-hall song. ‘The men in the long chairs 
turned with evident interest as Mottram banged the 
more lustily. 

‘That’s good!’ said Lowndes. ‘By Jove! the last 
time I heard that song was in ’79, or thereabouts, just 
before I came out.’ 

‘Ah!’ said Spurstow with pride, ‘Iwashomein’8o.’ And 
he mentioned a song of the streets popular at that date. 

Mottram executed it roughly. Lowndes criticised 
and volunteered emendations. Mottram dashed into an- 
other ditty, not of the music-hall character, and made 
as if to rise. 

‘Sit down,’ said Hummil. ‘I didn’t know that you had 
any music in your composition. Go on playing until you 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 253 


can’t think of anything more. I'll have that piano tuned 
up before you come again. Play something festive.’ 

Very simple indeed were the tunes to which Mottram’s 
art and the limitations of the piano could give effect, but 
the men listened with pleasure, and in the pauses talked 
all together of what they had seen or heard when they 
were last at home. A dense dust-storm sprung up out- 
side, and swept roaring over the house, enveloping it in 
the choking darkness of midnight, but Mottram continued 
unheeding, and the crazy tinkle reached the ears of the 
listeners above the flapping of the tattered ceiling-cloth. 

In the silence after the storm he glided from the 
more directly personal songs of Scotland, half humming 
them as he played, into the Evening Hymn. 

‘Sunday,’ said he, nodding his head. | 

‘Goon. Don’t apologise for it,’ said Spurstow. 

Hummil laughed long and riotously. ‘Play it, by all 
means. You're full of surprises to-day. I didn’t know 
you had such a gift of finished sarcasm. How does that 
thing go?’ 

Mottram took up the tune. 

‘Too slow by half. You miss the note of gratitude,’ 
said Hummil. ‘It ought to go to the ‘‘Grasshopper’s 
Polka,”—this way.’ And he chanted, prestissimo,— 


‘Glory to thee, my God, this night. 
For all the blessings of the light. 


That shows we really feel our blessings. How does it go 


opts ‘Tf in the night I sleepless lie, 


My soul with sacred thoughts supply; 
May no ill dreams disturb my rest,’— 


Quicker, Mottram !— 


‘Or powers of darkness me molest!’ 


254 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Bah! what an old hypocrite you are!’ 

‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Lowndes. ‘You are at full 
liberty to make fun of anything else you like, but leave 
that hymn alone. It’s associated in my mind with the 
most sacred recollections : 

‘Summer evenings in the country,—stained-glass 
window,—light going out, and you and she jamming your 
heads together over one hymn-book,’ said Mottram. 

‘Yes, and a fat old cockchafer hitting you in the eye 
when you walked home. Smell of hay, and a moon as 
big as a bandbox sitting on the top of a haycock; bats, 
—roses,—milk and midges,’ said Lowndes. 

‘Also mothers. I can just recollect my mother singing 
me to sleep with that when I was a little chap,’ said 
Spurstow. 

The darkness had fallen on the room. They could 
hear Hummil squirming in his chair. 

‘Consequently,’ said he testily, ‘you sing it when you 
are seven fathom deep in Hell! It’s an insult to the 
intelligence of the Deity to pretend we’re anything but 
tortured rebels.’ 

‘Take two pills,’ said Spurstow; ‘that’s tortured 
liver.’ 

‘The usually placid Hummil is in a vile bad temper. 
I’m sorry for his coolies to-morrow,’ said Lowndes, as the 
servants brought in the lights and prepared the table for 
dinner. 

As they were settling into their places about the miser- 
able goat-chops, and the smoked tapioca pudding, Spur- 
stow took occasion to whisper to Mottram, ‘Well done, 
David!’ 

‘Look after Saul, then,’ was the reply. 

‘What are you two whispering about?’ said Hummil 
suspiciously. 





AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 255 


‘Only saying that you are a damned poor host. This 
fowl can’t be cut,’ returned Spurstow with a sweet smile. 
‘Call this a dinner?’ 

‘Ican’t helpit. You don’t expect a banquet, do you?’ 

Throughout that meal Hummil contrived laboriously 
to insult directly and pointedly all his guests in succession, 
and at each insult Spurstow kicked the aggrieved persons 
under the table; but he dared not exchange a glance of 
intelligence with either of them. Hummil’s face was 
white and pinched, while his eyes were unnaturally large. 
No man dreamed for a moment of resenting his savage 
personalities, but as soon as the meal was over they made 
haste to get away. 

‘Don’t go. You're just getting amusing, you fellows. 
I hope I haven’t said anything that annoyed you. 
You're such touchy devils.’ Then, changing the note 
into one of almost abject entreaty, Hummil added, ‘I 
say, you surely aren’t going?’ 

‘In the language of the blessed Jorrocks, where I 
dines I sleeps,’ said Spurstow. ‘I want to have a look at 
your coolies to-morrow, if you don’t mind. You can 
give me a place to lie down in, I suppose?’ 

The others pleaded the urgency of their several 
duties next day, and, saddling up, departed together, 
Hummil begging them to come next Sunday. As they 
jogged off, Lowndes unbosomed himself to Mottram— 

, And I never felt so like kicking a man at his 
own table in my life. He said I cheated at whist, and re- 
minded me I was in debt! ’Told you you were as good 
as a liar to your face! You aren’t half indignant enough 
over it.’ 

‘Not I,’ said Mottram. ‘Poor devil! Did you ever 
know old Hummy behave like that before or within a 
hundred miles of it?’ 


256 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘That’snoexcuse. Spurstow was hacking my shin all the 
time,soIkepta handon myself. Else Ishould have——’ 

‘No, you wouldn’t. You’d have done as Hummy did 
about Jevins; judge no man this weather. By Jove! 
the buckle of my bridle is hot in my hand! ‘Trot outa 
_ bit, and ’ware rat-holes.’ 

Ten minutes’ trotting jerked out of Lowndes one very 
sage remark when he pulled up, sweating from every 
pore— 

‘’?Good thing Spurstow’s with him to-night.’ 

‘Ye-es. Good man, Spurstow. Our roads turn here. 
See you again next Sunday, if the sun doesn’t bowl me 
over.’ 

‘S’pose so, unless old Timbersides’ finance minister 
manages to dress some of my food. Good-night, and— 
God bless you!’ 

‘What’s wrong now?’ 

‘Oh, nothing.’ Lowndes gathered up his whip, and, 
as he flicked Mottram’s mare on the flank, added, 
‘You’re not a bad little chap,—that’s all.’ And the 
mare bolted half a mile across the sand, on the word. 

In the assistant engineer’s bungalow Spurstow and 
Hummil smoked the pipe of silence together, each nar- 
rowly watching the other. The capacity of a bachelor’s 
establishment is as elastic as its arrangements are simple. 
A servant cleared away the dining-room table, brought 
in a couple of rude native bedsteads made of tape 
strung on a light wood frame, flung a square of cool 
Calcutta matting over each, set them side by side, pinned 
two towels to the punkah so that their fringes should 
just sweep clear of the sleepers’ nose and mouth, and 
announced that the couches were ready. 

The men flung themselves down, ordering the punkah- 
coolies by all the powers of Hell to pull. Every door 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 257 


and window was shut, for the outside air was that of 
an oven. The atmosphere within was only 104°, as 
the thermometer bore witness, and heavy with the foul 
smell of badly-trimmed herosene lamps; and this stench, 
combined with that of native tobacco, baked brick, and 
dried earth, sends the heart of many a strong man down 
to his boots, for it is the smell of the Great Indian 
Empire when she turns herself for six months into a 
house of torment. Spurstow packed his pillows craftily 
so that he reclined rather than lay, his head at a safe 
elevation above his feet. It is not good to sleep on a 
low pillow in the hot weather if you happen to be of 
thick-necked build, for you may pass with lively snores 
and gugglings from natural sleep into the deep slumber 
of heat-apoplexy. 

‘Pack your pillows,’ said the doctor sharply, as he 
saw Hummil preparing to le down at full length. 

The night-light was trimmed; the shadow of the 
punkah wavered across the room, and the ‘flick’ of the 
punkah-towel and the soft whine of the rope through 
the wall-hole followed it. Then the punkah flagged, 
almost ceased. The sweat poured from Spurstow’s 
brow. Should he go out and harangue the coolie? It 
started forward again with a savage jerk, and a pin came 
out of the towels. When this was replaced, a tomtom in 
the coolie-lines began to beat with the steady throb of a 
swollen artery inside some brain-fevered skull. Spur- 
stow turned on his side and swore gently. There was 
no movement on Hummil’s part. The man had com- 
posed himself as rigidly as a corpse, his hands clinched 
at his sides. The respiration was too hurried for any 
suspicion of sleep. Spurstow looked at the set face. The 
jaws were clinched, and there was a pucker round the 
quivering eyelids. 


258 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘He’s holding himself as tightly as ever he can,’ thought 
Spurstow. ‘What in the world is the matter with him?— 
Hummi!!’ 

‘Yes,’ in a thick constrained voice. 

‘Can’t you get to sleep?’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Head hot? °’Throat feeling bulgy? or how?’ 

‘Neither, thanks. I don’t sleep much, you know.’ 

‘’Feel pretty bad?’ 

‘Pretty bad, thanks. There is a tomtom outside, isn’t 
there? I thought it was my headatfirst. . . . Oh, 
Spurstow, for pity’s sake give me something that will 
put me asleep,—sound asleep,—if it’s only for six hours!’ 
He sprang up, trembling from head to foot. ‘I haven’t 
been able to sleep naturally for days, and I can’t stand it! 
—I can’t stand it!’ 

‘Poor old chap!’ 

‘That’s no use. Give me something to make me sleep. 
I tell you I’m nearly mad. I don’t know what I say 
half my time. For three weeks I’ve had to think and 
spell out every word that has come through my lips 
before I dared say it. Isn’t that enough to drive a man 
mad? Ican’t see things correctly now, and I’ve lost my 
sense of touch. My skin aches—my skin aches! Make 
me sleep. Oh, Spurstow, for the love of God make me 
sleep sound. It isn’t enough merely to let me dream. 
Let me sleep!’ 

‘All right, old man, all right. Go slow; you aren’t 
half as bad as you think.’ 

The flood-gates of reserve once broken, Hummil was 
clinging to him like a frightened child. ‘You’re pinching 
my arm to pieces.’ 

‘Pll break your neck if you don’t do something for 
me. No, I didn’t mean that. Don’t be angry, old 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 259 


fellow.’ He wiped the sweat off himself as he fought 
to regain composure. ‘I’m a bit restless and off my oats, 
and perhaps you could recommend some sort of sleeping 
mixture,—bromide of potassium.’ 

‘Bromide of skittles! Why didn’t you tell me this 
before? Let go of my arm, and I'll see if there’s any- 
thing in my cigarette-case to suit your complaint.’ 
Spurstow hunted among his day-clothes, turned up the 
Jamp, opened a little silver cigarette-case, and advanced on 
the expectant Hummil with the daintiest of fairy squirts. 

‘The last appeal of civilisation,’ said he, ‘and a thing I 
hate to use. Hold out your arm. Well, your sleepless- 
ness hasn’t ruined your muscle; and what a thick hide it 
is! Might as well inject a buffalo subcutaneously. Now 
in a few minutes the morphia will begin working. Lie 
down and wait.’ 

A smile of unalloyed and idiotic delight began to creep 
over Hummil’s face. ‘I think,’ he whispered,—‘I think 
I’m going offnow. Gad!it’s positively heavenly! Spur- 
stow, you must give me that case to keep; you 1 
The voice ceased as the head fell back. 

‘Not for a good deal,’ said Spurstow to the uncon- 
scious form. ‘And now, my friend, sleeplessness of your 
kind being very apt to relax the moral fibre in little 
matters of life and death, Ill just take the liberty of 
spiking your guns.’ 

He paddled into Hummil’s saddle-room in his bare 
feet and uncased a twelve-bore rifle, an express, and a 
revolver. Of the first he unscrewed the nipples and 
hid them in the bottom of a saddlery-case; of the second 
he abstracted the lever, kicking it behind a big ward- 
robe. The third he merely opened, and knocked the 
doll-head bolt of the grip up with the heel of a riding- 
boot. 





260 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘That’s settled,’ he said, as he shook the sweat off his 
hands. ‘These little precautions will at least give you 
time to turn. You have too much sympathy with gun- 
room accidents.’ 

And as he rose from his knees, the thick muffled voice 
of Hummil cried in the doorway, ‘ You fool!’ 

Such tones they use who speak in the lucid intervals of 
delirium to their friends a little before they die. 

Spurstow started, dropping the pistol. Hummil stood 
in the doorway, rocking with helpless laughter. 

‘That was awi’ly good of you, I’m sure,’ he said, very 
slowly, feeling for his words. ‘I don’t intend to go out by 
my own hand at present. I say, Spurstow, that stuff 
won’t work. What shall I do? What shall I do?’ 
And panic terror stood in his eyes. 

‘Lie down and giveitachance. Lie down at once.’ 

‘I daren’t. It will only take me half-way again, and I 
shan’t be able to get away this time. Do you knowit was 
all I could do to come out just now? Generally Iam as 
quick as lightning; but you had clogged my feet. I was 
nearly caught.’ 

‘Oh yes, I understand. Go and lie down.’ 

‘No, it isn’t delirium; but it was an awfully mean trick 
to playonme. Do you know I might have died?’ 

As a sponge rubs a slate clean, so some power unknown 
to Spurstow had wiped out of Hummil’s face all that 
stamped it for the face of a man, and he stood at the 
doorway in the expression of his lost innocence. He had 
slept back into terrified childhood. 

‘Is he going to die on the spot?’ thought Spurstow. 
Then, aloud, ‘All right, my son. Come back to bed, and 
tell me all about it. You couldn’t sleep; but what was all 
the rest of the nonsense?’ 

‘A place,—a place down there,’ said Hummil, with 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 261 


simple sincerity. The drug was acting on him by waves, 
and he was flung from the fear of a strong man to the 
fright of a child as his nerves gathered sense or were 
dulled. 

‘Good God! I’ve been afraid of it for months past, 
Spurstow. It has made every night hell to me; and yet 
I’m not conscious of having done anything wrong.’ 

‘Be still, and I’ll give you another dose. We'll stop 
your nightmares, you unutterable idiot!’ 

‘Yes, but you must give me so much that I can’t get 
away. You must make me quite sleepy,—not just a little 
sleepy. It’s so hard to run then.’ 

‘IT know it; Iknowit. Ive felt it myself. The symp- 
toms are exactly as you describe.’ 

‘Oh, don’t laugh at me, confound you! Before this 
awful sleeplessness came to me I’ve tried to rest on my 
elbow and put a spur in the bed to sting me when I fell 
back. Look!’ 

‘By Jove! the man has been rowelled like a horse! 
Ridden by the nightmare with a vengeance! And we all 
thought him sensible enough. Heaven send us under- 
standing! You like to talk, don’t you?’ 

‘Yes, sometimes. Not when I’m frightened. Then I 
want torun. Don’t you?’ 

‘Always. Before I give you your second dose try to 
tell me exactly what your trouble is.’ 

Hummil spoke in broken whispers for nearly ten 
minutes, whilst Spurstow looked into the pupils of his 
eyes and passed his hand before them once or twice. 

At the end of the narrative the silver cigarette-case 
was produced, and the last words that Hummil said as he 
fell back for the second time were, ‘Put me quite to 
sleep; for if I’m caught I die,—I die!’ 

‘Yes, yes; we all do that sooner or later,—thank 


262 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Heaven who has set a term to our miseries,’ said Spur- 
stow, settling the cushions under the head. ‘It occurs 
to me that unless I drink something [I shall go out 
before my time. I’ve stopped sweating, and—I wear 
a seventeen-inch collar.’ He brewed himself scald- 
ing hot tea, which is an excellent remedy against heat- 
apoplexy if you take three or four cups of it in time. 
Then he watched the sleeper. 

‘A blind face that cries and can’t wipe its eyes, a 
blind face that chases him down corridors! H’m! 
Decidedly, Hummil ought to go on leave as soon as 
possible; and, sane or otherwise, he undoubtedly did 
rowel himself most cruelly. Well, Heaven send us 
understanding!’ 

At mid-day Hummil rose, with an evil taste in his 
mouth, but an unclouded eye and a joyful heart. 

‘I was pretty bad last night, wasn’t I?’ said he. 

‘I have seen healthier men. You must have had a 
touch of the sun. Look here: if I write you a swingeing 
medical certificate, will you apply for leave on the spot?’ 

NO: 

‘Why not? You want it.’ 

‘Yes, but I can hold on till the weather’s a little 
cooler.’ 

‘Why should you, if you can get relieved on the spot?’ 

‘Burkett is the only man who could be sent; and he’s 
a born fool.’ 

‘Oh, never mind about the line. You aren’t so im- 
portant as all that. Wire for leave, if necessary.’ 

Hummil looked very uncomfortable. 

‘T can hold on till the Rains,’ he said evasively. 

‘You can’t. Wire to headquarters for Burkett.’ 

‘I won’t. If you want to know why, particularly, 
Burkett is married, and his wife’s just had a kid, and 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 263 


she’s up at Simla, in the cool, and Burkett has a very 
nice billet that takes him into Simla from Saturday to 
Monday. That little woman isn’t at all well. If Burkett 
was transferred she’d try to follow him. If she left the 
baby behind she’d fret herself to death. If she came, 
—and Burkett’s one of those selfish little beasts who 
are always talking about a wife’s place being with her 
husband,—she’d die. It’s murder to bring a woman here 
just now. Burkett hasn’t the physique of a rat. If he 
came here he’d go out; and I know she hasn’t any 
money, and I’m pretty sure she’d go out too. I’m salted 
in a sort of way, and I’m not married. Wait till the 
Rains, and then Burkett can get thin down here. It’ll do 
him heaps of good.’ 

‘Do you mean to say that you intend to face—what 
you have faced, till the Rains break?’ 

‘Oh, it won’t be so bad, now you’ve shown me a way 
out of it. I can always wire to you. Besides, now I’ve 
once got into the way of sleeping, it’ll be all right. Any- 
how, I shan’t put in for leave. That’s the long and the 
short of it.’ 

‘My great Scott! I thought all that sort of thing was 
dead and done with.’ 

‘Bosh! You’d do the same yourself. I feel a new 
man, thanks to that cigarette-case. You’re going over 
to camp now, aren’t you?’ 

‘Yes; but I’ll try to look you up every other day, if I 
can.’ 

‘I’m not bad enough for that. I don’t want you to 
bother. Give the coolies gin and ketchup.’ 

‘Then you feel all right?’ 

‘Fit to fight for my life, but not to stand out in the 
sun talking to you. Go along, old man, and bless you!’ 
* Hummil turned on his heel to face the echoing deso- 


264 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


lation of his bungalow, and the first thing he saw stand- 
ing in the verandah was the figure of himself. He had 
met a similar apparition once before, when he was sufier- 
ing from overwork and the strain of the hot weather. 

‘This is bad,—already,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘If 
the thing slides away from me all in one piece, like a 
ghost, I shall know it is only my eyes and stomach that 
are out of order. If it walks—my head is going.’ 

He approached the figure, which naturally kept at an 
unvarying distance from him, as is the use of all spectres 
that are born of overwork. It slid through the house 
and dissolved into swimming specks within the eyeball 
as soon as it reached the burning light of the garden. 
Hummil went about his business till even. When he 
came in to dinner he found himself sitting at the table. 
The vision rose and walked out hastily. Except that 
it cast no shadow it was in all respects real. 

No living man knows what that week held for Hum- 
mil. An increase of the epidemic kept Spurstow in 
camp among the coolies, and all he could do was to 
telegraph to Mottram, bidding him go to the bungalow 
and sleep there. But Mottram was forty miles away 
from the nearest telegraph, and knew nothing of anything 
save the needs of the survey till he met, early on Sunday 
morning, Lowndes and Spurstow heading towards Hum- 
mil’s for the weekly gathering. 

“Hope the poor chap’s in a better temper,’ said the 
former, swinging himself off his horse at the door. ‘I 
suppose he isn’t up yet.’ 

‘Tl just have a look at him,’ said the doctor. ‘If 
he’s asleep there’s no need to wake him.’ 

And an instant later, by the tone of Spurstow’s voice 
calling upon them to enter, the men knew what had 
happened. ‘There was no need to wake him, 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 265 


The punkah was still being pulled over the bed, but 
Hummil had departed this life at least three hours. 

The body lay on its back, hands clinched by the side, 
as Spurstow had seen it lying seven nights previously. 
In the staring eyes was written terror beyond the ex- 
pression of any pen. 

Mottram, who had entered behind Lowndes, bent over 
the dead and touched the forehead lightly with his lips. 
‘Oh, you lucky, lucky devil!’ he whispered. 

But Lowndes had seen the eyes, and withdrew shud- 
dering to the other side of the room. 

‘Poor chap! poor old chap! And the last time I met 
him I was angry. Spurstow, we should have watched 
him. Has he——?’ 

Deftly Spurstow continued his investigations, ending 
by a search round the room. 

‘No, he hasn’t,’ he snapped. ‘There’s no trace of 
anything. Call the servants.’ 

They came, eight or ten of them, whispering and peer- 
ing over each other’s shoulders. 

‘When did your Sahib go to bed?’ said Spurstow. 

‘At eleven or ten, we think,’ said Hummil’s personal 
servant. 

‘He was well then? But how should you know?’ 

‘He was not ill, as far as our comprehension extended. 
But he had slept very little for three nights. This I 
know, because I saw him walking much, and specially in 
the heart of the night.’ 

As Spurstow was arranging the sheet, a big straight- 
necked hunting-spur tumbled on the ground. The 
doctor groaned. The personal servant peeped at the 
body. 

‘What do you think, Chuma?’ said Spurstow, catch« 
ing the look on the dark face. 


266 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Heaven-born, In my poor opinion, this that was my 
master has descended into the Dark Places, and there 
has been caught because he was not able to escape with 
sufficient speed. We have the spur for evidence that he 
fought with Fear. Thus have I seen men of my race do 
with thorns when a spell was laid upon them to overtake 
them in their sleeping hours and they dared not sleep.’ 

‘Chuma, you’re a mud-head. Go out and prepare 
seals to be set on the Sahib’s property.’ 

‘God has made the Heaven-born. God has made me. 
Who are we, to inquire into the dispensations of God? 
I will bid the other servants hold aloof while you are 
reckoning the tale of the Sahib’s property. They are all 
thieves, and would steal.’ 

‘As far as I can make out, he died from—oh, any- 
thing; stoppage of the heart’s action, heat-apoplexy, 
or some other visitation,’ said Spurstow to his com- 
panions. ‘We must make an inventory of his effects, 
and so on.’ 

‘He was scared to death,’ insisted Lowndes. ‘Look 
at those eyes! For pity’s sake don’t let him be buried 
with them open!’ 

“Whatever it was, he’s clear of all the trouble now,’ 
said Mottram softly. 

Spurstow was peering into the open eyes. 

‘Come here,’ said he. ‘Can you see anything there?’ 

‘TI can’t face it!’ whimpered Lowndes. ‘Cover up the 
face! Is there any fear on earth that can turn a man 
into that likeness? It’s ghastly. Oh, Spurstow, cover 
it up!’ 

‘No fear—on earth,’ said Spurstow. Mottram leaned 
over his shoulder and looked intently. 

‘I see nothing except some gray blurs in the pupil. 
There can be nothing there, you know.’ 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 267 


‘Even so. Well, let’s think. It'll take half a day 
to knock up any sort of coffin; and he must have died 
at midnight. Lowndes, old man, go out and tell the 
coolies to break ground next to Jevins’s grave. Mot- 
tram, go round the house with Chuma and see that the 
seals are put on things. Send a couple of men to me 
here, and I'll arrange.’ 

The strong-armed servants when they returned to 
their own kind told a strange story of the doctor Sahib 
vainly trying to call their master back to life by magic 
arts,—to wit, the holding of a little green box that 
clicked to each of the dead man’s eyes, and of a be- 
wildered muttering on the part of the doctor Sahib, who 
took the little green box away with him. 

The resonant hammering of a coffin-lid is no pleasant 
thing to hear, but those who have experience main- 
tain that much more terrible is the soft swish of the 
bed-linen, the reeving and unreeving of the bed-tapes, 
when he who has fallen by the roadside is apparelled for 
burial, sinking gradually as the tapes are tied over, till 
the swaddled shape touches the floor and there is no 
protest against the indignity of hasty disposal. 

At the last moment Lowndes was seized with scruples 
of conscience. ‘Ought you to read the service,—from 
beginning to end?’ said he to Spurstow. 

‘I intend to. You’re my senior as a civilian. You 
can take it if you like.’ 

‘T didn’t mean that fora moment. [I only thought if 
we could get a chaplain from somewhere,—I’m willing to 
ride anywhere,—and give poor Hummil a better chance. 
That’s all.’ 

‘Bosh!’ said Spurstow, as he framed his lips to the 
tremendous words that stand at the head of the burial 
service. 


268 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


After breakfast they smoked a pipe in silence to the 
memory of the dead. Then Spurstow said absently— 

‘?Tisn’t in medical science.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Things in a dead man’s eye.’ 

‘For goodness’ sake leave that horror alone!’ said 
Lowndes. ‘I’ve seen a native die of pure fright 
when a tiger chivied him. I know what killed Hum- 
mil.’ 

‘The deuce you do! I’m going to try to see.’ And 
the doctor retreated into the bath-room with a Kodak 
camera. After a few minutes there was the sound of 
something being hammered to pieces, and he emerged, 
very white indeed. 

‘Have you got a picture?’ said Mottram. ‘What does 
the thing look like?’ 

‘It was impossible, of course. You needn’t look, 
Mottram. I’ve torn up the films. There was nothing 
there. It was impossible.’ 

‘That,’ said Lowndes, very distinctly, watching the 
shaking hand striving to relight the pipe, ‘is a damned 
lie.’ 

Mottram laughed uneasily. ‘Spurstow’s right,’ he 
said. ‘We’re all in such a state now that we’d believe 
anything. For pity’s sake let’s try to be rational.’ 

There was no further speech for a long time. The 
hot wind whistled without, and the dry trees sobbed. 
Presently the daily train, winking brass, burnished steel, 
and spouting steam, pulled up panting in the intense 
glare. ‘We’d better go on on that,’ said Spurstow. 
‘Go back to work. I’ve written my certificate. We 
can’t do any more good here, and work’!] keep our wits 
togetl er. Come on.’ | 

No one moved. It is not pleasant to face railway 


\ 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 269 


journeys at mid-day in June. Spurstow gathered up his 
hat and whip, and, turning in the doorway, said— 


‘There may be Heaven,—there must be Hell. 
Meantime, there is our life here. We-ell?’ 


Neither Mottram nor Lowndes had any answer to the 
question. 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 


Causin ‘ 
peas id 4 in forces } Regular forces, 
Sec. 7. th ‘ina a mutiny }) belonging \ Reserve forces, 
Ww “s ; oa 
(x) sedition | to Her (Auxiliary forces, 


persons to 
cause 


Majesty’s Navy. 
WHEN three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued 
on insufficient premises they condemned a fellow-creature 
to a most unpleasant death in a far country, which had 
nothing whatever to do with the United States. They 
foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama 
Street, an unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling 
for certain drinks, they conspired because they were con- 
spirators by trade, officially known as the Third Three oc 
the J.A.A.—an institution for the propagation of pure 
light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is 
affiliated to many. The Second Three live in Montreal, 
and work among the poor there; the First Three have 
their home in New York, not far from Castle Garden, 
and write regularly once a week to a small house near 
one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens 
after that, a particular section of Scotland Yard knows 
too well, and laughs at. A conspirator detests ridicule. 
More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia Borgia dag- 
gers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head 
Centres and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for 
this is human nature. 

The Third Three conspired over whisky cocktails 


270_ 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 271 


and a clean sheet of notepaper against the British Empire 
and all that lay therein. This work is very like what 
men without discernment call politics before a general 
election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of 
congenial friends, all the weak points in your opponents’ 
organisation, and unconsciously dwell upon and exagger- 
ate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that 
the hated party holds together for an hour. 

‘Our principle is not so much active demonstration— 
that we leave to others—as passive embarrassment, to 
weaken and unnerve,’ said the first man. ‘Wherever an 
organisation is crippled, wherever a confusion is thrown 
into any branch of any department, we gain a step 
for those who take on the work; we are but the forerun- 
ners. He was a German enthusiast, and editor of a 
newspaper, from whose leading articles he quoted fre- 
quently. 

“That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her 
own that unless we doubled the year’s average I guess 
it wouldn’t strike her anything special had occurred,’ 
said the second man. ‘Are you prepared to say that all 
our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a 
hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on 
a plain rock in clear daylight? ‘They can beat us at our 
own game. ‘Better join hands with the practical 
branches; we’re in funds now. ‘Try a direct scare in a 
crowded street. They value their greasy hides.’ He was 
the drag upon the wheel, and an Americanised Irish- 
man of the second generation, despising his own race 
and hating the other. He had learned caution. 

The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. 
He was the strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge 
of life was limited. He picked a letter from his breast- 
pocket and threw it across the table. That epistle to the 


272 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


heathen contained some very concise directions from the 
First Three in New York. It said— 

‘The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern 
markets, where our agents have been forcing down the 
English-held stock among the smaller buyers who watch the 
turn of shares. Any immediate operations, such as western 
bears, would increase their willingness to unload. This, 
however, cannot be expected tll they see clearly that foreign 
iron-masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should 
be dispatched to feel the pulse of the market, and act accord- 
ingly. Mavericks are at present the best for our purpose. 
—P.D.0. 

As a message referring to an iron crisis in Penn- 
sylvania, it was interesting, if not lucid. As a new 
departure in organised attack on an outlying English 
dependency, it was more than interesting. 

The second man read it through and murmured— 

‘Already? Surely they are in too great a hurry. All 
that Dhulip Singh could do in India he has done, down 
to the distribution of his photographs among the peas- 
antry. Ho! Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and 
he has no substantial money backing from the Other 
Power. Even our agents in India know he hasn’t. 
What is the use of our organisation wasting men on work 
that is already done? Of course the Irish regiments in 
India are half mutinous as they stand.’ 

This shows how near a lie may come to the truth. 
An Irish regiment, for just so long as it stands still, is 
generally a hard handful to control, being reckless and 
rough. When, however, it is moved in the direction of 
musketry-firing, it becomes strangely and unpatriotically 
content with its lot. It has even been heard to cheer the 
Queen with enthusiasm on these occasions. 

But the notion of tampering with the army was, from 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 273 


the point of view of Tehama Street, an altogether sound 
one. There is no shadow of stability in the policy of 
an English Government, and the most sacred oaths of 
England would, even if engrossed on vellum, find very few 
buyers among colonies and dependencies that have suf- 
fered from vain beliefs. But there remains to England 
always her army. That cannot change except in the 
matter of uniform and equipment. The officers may 
write to the papers demanding the heads of the Horse 
Guards in default of cleaner redress for grievances; the 
men may break loose across a country town and seriously 
startle the publicans; but neither officers nor men have it 
in their composition to mutiny after the continental 
manner. The English people, when they trouble to think 
about the army at all, are, antl with justice, absolutely 
assured that it is absolutely trustworthy. Imagine fora 
moment their emotions on realising that such and such a 
regiment was in open revolt from causes directly due to 
England’s management of Ireland. They would prob- 
ably send the regiment to the polls forthwith and exam- 
ine their own consciences as to their duty to Erin; but 
they would never be easy any more. And it was this 
vague, unhappy mistrust that the I. A. A. were labouring 
to produce. 

‘Sheer waste of breath,’ said the second man after 
a pause in the council, ‘I don’t see the use of tampering 
with their fool-army, but it has been tried before and 
we must try it again. It looks well in the reports. 
If we send one man from here you may bet your life 
that other men are going too. Order up Mulcahy.’ 

They ordered him up—a slim, slight, dark-haired 
young man, devoured with that blind rancorous hatred 
of England that only reaches its full growth across the 
Atlantic. He had sucked it from his mother’s breast in 


274 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the little cabin at the back of the northern avenues of 
New York; he had been taught his rights and his wrongs, 
in German and Irish, on the canal fronts of Chicago; and 
San Francisco held men who told him strange and awful 
things of the great blind power over the seas. Once, 
when business took him across the Atlantic, he had 
served in an English regiment, and being insubordinate 
had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas of Eng- 
land that were not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints 
from one iron-fisted colonel and an unbending adjutant. 
He would go to the mines if need be to teach his gospel. 
And he went as his instructions advised p.d.¢.—which 
means ‘with speed’—to introduce embarrassment into 
an Irish regiment, ‘already half-mutinous, quartered 
among Sikh peasantry, all wearing miniatures of His 
Highness Dhulip Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab, next 
their hearts, and all eagerly expecting his arrival.’ 
Other information equally valuable was given him by his 
masters. He was to be cautious, but never to grudge 
expense in winning the hearts of the men in the regiment. 
His mother in New York would supply funds, and he 
was to write to her oncea month. Life is pleasant for a 
man who has a mother in New York to send him two hun- 
dred pounds a year over and above his regimental pay. 

In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge 
of drill and musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy, 
wearing the corporal’s stripe, went out in a troopship and 
joined Her Majesty’s Royal Loyal Musketeers, commonly 
known as the ‘Mavericks,’ because they were masterless 
and unbranded cattle—sons of small farmers in County 
Clare, shoeless vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Bally- 
vegan, much wanted ‘moonlighters’ from the bare rainy 
headlands of the south coast, officered by O’Mores, 
Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the like. Never to outward 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 275 


seeming was there more promising material to work on. 
The First Three had chosen their regiment well. It 
feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel 
and the regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat 
Father Dennis, who held the keys of heaven and hell, 
and blared like an angry bull when he desired to be con- 
vincing. Him also it loved because on occasions of 
stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge with 
the rest into the merriest of the fray, where he always 
found, good man, that the saints sent him a revolver 
when there was a fallen private to be protected, or—but 
this came as an afterthought—his own gray head to be 
guarded. 

Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and 
with much beer, Mulcahy opened his projects to such as 
he deemed fittest to listen. And these were, one and 
all, of that quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly irrespon- 
sible and profoundly lovable race that fight like fiends, 
argue like children, reason like women, obey like men, and 
jest like their own goblins of the rath through rebellion, 
loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a 
conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the 
world over. At the end of six months—the seed always 
falling on good ground—Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, 
hinting darkly in the approved fashion at dread powers 
behind him, and advising nothing more nor less than 
mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? had they 
not all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? 
Who in these days would do aught to nine hundred men 
in rebellion? Who, again, could stay them if they broke 
for the sea, licking up on their way other regiments only 
too anxious to join? And afterwards . . . here 
followed windy promises of gold and preferment, office, 
and honour ever dear to a certain type of Irishman. 


276 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to 
his chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly 
unslung belt behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady 
flew out in the gloom and arrested something. Then 
said Dan— 

‘Mulcahy, you’re a great man, an’ you do credit to 
whoever sent you. Walk about a bit while we think of 
it.’ Mulcahy departed elate. He knew his words 
would sink deep. 

‘Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me 
belt him?’ grunted a voice. 

‘Because I’m not a fat-headed fool. Boys, ’tis what 
he’s been driving at these six months—our superior 
corpril with his education and his copies of the Irish 
papers and his everlasting beer. He’s been sent for the 
purpose and that’s where the money comes from. Can 
ye not see? That man’s a gold-mine, which Horse Egan 
here would have destroyed with a belt-buckie. It would 
be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in 
with his little plans. Of coorse we’ll mut’ny till all’s dry. 
Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the 
company officers, ransack the arsenal, and then—Boys, 
did he tell you what next? He told me the other night 
when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we’re to join 
with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh 
and the Russians!’ 

‘And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side 
of Hell! Danny, I’d have lost the beer to ha’ given him 
the belting he requires.’ 

‘Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He’s got no—no 
constructiveness, but that’s the egg-meat of his plan, 
and you must understand that I’m in with it, an’ so are 
you. We’ll want oceans of beer to convince us—firma- 
ments full. We'll give him talk for his money, and one 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 277 


by one all the boys ’Il come in and he’ll have a nest of 
nine hundred mutineers to squat in an’ give drink to.’ 

‘What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do 
what the niggers did thirty years gone. That an’ his 
pig’s cheek in saying that other regiments would come 
vlong,’ said a Kerry man. 

‘“That’s not so bad as hintin’ we should loose off on the 
colonel.’ 

‘Colonel be sugared! I’d as soon as not put a shot 
through his helmet to see him jump and clutch his old 
horse’s head. But Mulcahy talks o’ shootin’ our comp’ny 
orf’cers accidental.’ 

‘He said that, did he?’ said Horse Egan. 

‘Somethin’ like that, anyways. Can’t ye fancy ould 
Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin’ like a 
sick monkey, an’ sayin’, ‘“Bhoys, I do not mind your 
gettin’ dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor like men. 
The man that shot me is dhrunk. I'll suspend in- 
vestigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut out, 
an’ then a 

‘An’ then,’ continued Horse Egan, for the peppery 
Major’s peculiarities of speech and manner were as well 
known as his tanned face; ‘‘‘an’ then, ye dissolute, half- 
baked, putty-faced scum 0’ Connemara, if I find a man so 
much as lookin’ confused, begad, I’ll coort-martial the 
whole company. A man that can’t get over his liquor 
in six hours is not fit to belong to the Mavericks!’’’ 

A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the 
sketch. 

‘It’s pretty to think of,’ said the Kerry man slowly. 
‘Mulcahy would have us do all the devilmint, and get 
clear himself, someways. He wudn’t be takin’ all this 
fool’s throuble in shpoilin’ the reputation of the regi- 
ment——’ 





278 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Reputation of your grandmother’s pig!’ said Dan. 

‘Well, an’ ke had a good reputation tu; so it’s all right. 
Mulcahy must see his way to clear out behind him, or 
he’d not ha’ come so far, talkin’ powers of darkness.’ 

‘Did you hear anything of a regimental court-martial 
among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company 
of ’em took one of the new draft an’ hanged him by his 
arms with a tent-rope from a third story verandah. 
They gave no reason for so doin’, but he was half dead. 
I’m thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was 
a friend of Mulcahy’s, or a man in the same trade. 
They’d a deal better ha’ taken his beer,’ returned Dan 
reflectively. 

‘Better still ha’ handed him up to the Colonel,’ said 
Horse Egan, ‘onless—but sure the news wud be all over 
the counthry an’ give the reg’ment a bad name.’ 

‘An’ there’d be no reward for that man—he but went 
about talkin’,’ said the Kerry man artlessly. 

‘You speak by your breed,’ said Dan with a laugh. 
“There was never a Kerry man yet that wudn’t sell his 
brother for a pipe o’ tobacco an’ a pat on the back from 
a p’liceman.’ 

‘Praise God I’m not a bloomin’ Orangeman,’ was the 
answer. 

‘No, nor never will be,’ said Dan. ‘They breed men 
in Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one?’ 

The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The 
odds of battle were too great. 

‘Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a—a strike for his 
money,’ said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what 
he called ‘trouble’ of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity. 

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with 
large strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The 
room was empty. In a corner, cased like the King of 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 279 


Dahomey’s state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours. 
Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the 
candles the record of the Mavericks—tattered, worn, and 
hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with 
big brown stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp 
were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the to- 
tem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, em- 
broidered folds, whose price is human life, rustled down 
slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long and 
guard them very sacredly. 

‘Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, 
Ferozshah, an’ Sobraon—that was fought close next door 
here, against the very beggars he wants us to join. In- 
kermann, The Alma, Sebastopol! What are those little 
businesses compared to the campaigns of General Mul- 
cahy? The Mut’ny, think o’ that; the Mut’ny an’ some 
dirty little matters in Afghanistan; an’ for that an’ these 
an’ those’—Dan pointed to the names of glorious bat- 
tles—‘that Yankee man with the partin’ in his hair 
comes an’ says as easy as “haveadrink.” . . . Holy 
Moses, there’s the captain!’ 

But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the 
men clattered out, and found the colours uncased. 

From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to 
the joy of Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New 
York—the good lady who sent the money for the beer. 
Never, so far as words went, was such a mutiny. The 
conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured 
in daily. They were sound men, men to be trusted, and 
they all wanted blood; but first they must have beer. 
They cursed the Queen, they mourned over Ireland, they 
suggested hideous plunder of the Indian country side, and 
then, alas—some of the younger men would go forth and 
wallow on the ground in spasms of wicked laughter. 


280 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remarkable. 
None the less they would swear no oaths but those of 
their own making, which were rare and curious, and they 
were always at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks 
they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought demoral- 
isation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and 
when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the 
nose or called his commanding officer a bald-headed old 
lard-bladder and even worse names, he fancied that re- 
bellion and not liquor was at the bottom of the outbreak. 
Other gentlemen who have concerned themselves in 
larger conspiracies have made the same error. 

The hot season, in which they protested no man could 
rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible 
return for his teachings. As to the actual upshot of the 
mutiny he cared nothing. It would be enough if the 
English, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their 
army, should be startled with news of an Irish regiment 
revolting from political considerations. His persistent 
demands would have ended, at Dan’s instigation, in a 
regimental belting which in all probability would have 
killed him and cut off the supply of beer, had not he been 
sent on special duty some fifty miles away from the can- 
tonment to cool his heels in a mud fort and dismount 
obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of the Mavericks, 
reading his newspaper diligently, and scenting Frontier 
trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and 
pled with the Commander-in-chief for certain privileges, 
to be granted under certain contingencies; which con- 
tingencies came about only a week later, when the an- 
nual little war on the border developed itself and the 
colonel returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks. 
He held the promise of the Chief for active service, and 
the men must get ready. 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 281 


On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an uncon- 
sidered corporal—yet great in conspiracy—returned to 
cantonments, and heard sounds of strife and howlings 
from afar off. The mutiny had broken out and the 
barracks of the Mavericks were one white-washed 
pandemonium. A private tearing through the barrack- 
square, gasped in his ear, ‘Service! Active service. It’s 
a burnin’ shame.’ Oh joy, the Mavericks had risen on 
the eve of battle! They would not—noble and loyal 
sons of Ireland—serve the Queen longer. The news 
would flash through the country side and over to Eng- 
land, and he—Mulcahy—the trusted of the Third Three, 
had brought about the crash. The private stood in the 
middle of the square and cursed colonel, regiment, officers, 
and doctor, particularly the doctor, by his gods. An 
orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through 
the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half dragged 
from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand- 
claps till his eyes watered, and called all manner of en- 
dearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternised 
with the native troops. Who then was the agent among 
the latter that had blindly wrought with Mulcahy so 
well? 

An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a bar- 
rack. He was mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who 
closed round but did not kill him, for he fought his way 
to shelter, flying for the life. Mulcahy could have wept 
with pure joy and thankfulness. The very prisoners in 
the guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells and 
howling like wild beasts, and from every barrack poured 
the booming as of a big war-drum. 

Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could 
hardly hear himself speak. Eighty men were pounding 
with fist and heel the tables and trestles—eighty men, 


282 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


flushed with mutiny, stripped to their shirt sleeves, their 
knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the 
two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted to a tune 
that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the 
Mavericks— 


Listen in the north, my boys, there’s trouble on the wind; 
Tramp o’ Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind, 
Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin’ kind, 

Trouble on the waters o’ the Oxus! 


Then, as a table broke under the furious accompani- 
ment— 

Hurrah! hurrah! it’s north by west we go; 

Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so; 


Let ’em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow, 
As we go marchin’ to the Kremling. 


‘Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils 
in cinders, where’s my fine new sock widout the heel?’ 
howled Horse Egan, ransacking everybody’s valise but 
his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies 
of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he 
steals best who steals last. ‘Ah, Mulcahy, you’re in 
good time,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got the route, and we’re 
off on Thursday for a pic-nic wid the Lancers next 
door.’ 

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket 
full of lint rolls, provided by the forethought of the 
Queen for such as might need them later on. Horse 
Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under Mulcahy’s 
nose, chanting— 


‘Sheepskin an’ bees’ wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster, 
The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. 
As I was goin’ to New Orleans— 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 283 


‘You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew 
boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the Queen in the inside 
av a fortnight, my darlin’.’ 

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked 
vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when 
the pantomime-cab is at the door; or a girl develop a 
will of her own when her mother is putting the last 
touches to the first ball-dress; but do not ask an Irish 
regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a 
campaign; when it has fraternised with the native 
regiment that accompanies it, and driven its officers into 
retirement with ten thousand clamorous questions, and 
the prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand in 
the open, calling down all known diseases on the head of 
the doctor, who has certified that they are “‘medically 
unfit for active service.” At even the Mavericks might 
have been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed 
in their natures as Mulcahy. At dawn a girls’ school 
might have learned deportment from them. They knew 
that their colonel’s hand had closed, and that he who 
broke that iron discipline would not go to the front: 
nothing in the world will persuade one of our soldiers 
when he is ordered to the north on the smallest of affairs 
that he is not immediately going gloriously to slay Cos- 
sacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the Czar. A 
few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy’s beer, 
because the campaign was to be conducted on strict 
temperance principles, but as Dan and Horse Egan said 
sternly, ‘We’ve got the beer-man with us. He shall 
drink now on his own hook.’ 

Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of 
being sent on active service. He had made up his mind 
that he would not go under any circumstances, but for- 
tune was against him. 


284 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘Sick—you?’ said the doctor, who had served an 
unholy apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poorhouses. 
‘“You’re only home-sick, and what you call varicose veins 
come from over-eating. A little gentle exercise will cure 
that.’ And later, ‘Mulcahy, my man, everybody is 
allowed to apply for a sick-certificate once. If he tries it 
twice we call him by an ugly name. Go back to your 
duty, and let’s hear no more of your diseases.’ 

I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the 
study of Mulcahy’s soul in those days, and Dan took an 
‘equal interest. Together they would communicate to 
their corporal all the dark lore of death which is the por- 
tion of those who have seen men die. Egan had the 
larger experience, but Dan the finer imagination. Mul- 
cahy shivered when the former spoke of the knife as an 
intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving 
particularity on the fate of those who, wounded and 
helpless, had been overlooked by the ambulances, and 
had fallen into the hands of the Afghan women-folk. 

Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at 
least, was dead; knew, too, that a change had come 
over Dan’s usually respectful attitude towards him, and 
Horse Egan’s laughter and frequent allusions to abortive 
conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had 
guessed. The horrible fascination of the death-stories, 
however, made him seek the men’s society. He learnt 
much more than he had bargained for; and in this man- 
ner: It was on the last night before the regiment en- 
trained to the front. The barracks were stripped of 
everything movable, and the men were too excited to 
sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of 
chloride of lime. 

‘And what,’ said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, 
after some conversation on the eternal subject, ‘are 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 285 


you going to do tome, Dan?’ This might have been the 
language of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit. 

‘You'll see,’ said Dan grimly, turning over in his 
cot, ‘or I rather shud say you'll not see.’ 

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mul- 
cahy shook under the bed-clothes. 

‘Be easy with him,’ put in Egan from the next cot. 
‘He has got his chanst 0’ goin’ clean. Listen, Mulcahy; 
all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that 
you take your death standing up, asa manshud. There 
be heaps an’ heaps of enemy—plenshus heaps. Go 
there an’ do all you can and die decent. You'll die with 
a good name there. ’Tis not a hard thing considerin’.’ 

Again Mulcahy shivered. 

‘An’ how could a man wish to die better than fightin’?’ 
added Dan consolingly. 

‘And if I won’t?’ said the corporal in a dry whisper. 

‘There’ll be a dale of smoke,’ returned Dan, sitting 
up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, ‘sure to be, 
an’ the noise of the firin’ ’Il be tremenjus, an’ we’ll be 
running about up and down, the regiment will. But we, 
Horse and I—we’ll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let 
you go. Maybe there’ll be an accident.’ 

‘It’s playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity’s 
sake let me go. I never did you harm, and—and I 
stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, don’t be hard 
on me, Dan! You are—you were init too. You won’t 
kill me up there, will you?’ 

‘!’m not thinkin’ of the treason; though you shud 
be glad any honest boys drank with you. It’s for the 
regiment. We can’t have the shame o’ you bringin’ 
shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick 
cat to get and stay behind an’ live with the women at 
the depédt—you that wanted us to run to the sea in 


286 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood 
dared to be! But we knew about your goin’ to the 
doctor, for he told in mess, and it’s all over the regiment. 
Bein’, as we are, your best friends, we didn’t allow 
any one to molest you yet. We will see to you our- 
selves. Fight which you will—us or the enemy—you’ll 
never lie in that cot again, and there’s more glory and 
maybe less kicks from fightin’ the enemy. That’s fair 
speakin’.’ 

‘And he told us by word of mouth to go and join 
with the niggers—you’ve forgotten that, Dan,’ said 
Horse Egan, to justify sentence. 

‘What’s the use of plaguin’ the man? One shot pays 
forall. Sleep yesound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, 
do ye not?’ 

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of 
anything at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp, 
or at parade, stood two big men with soft voices ad- 
juring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should 
happen—to die for the honour of the regiment in decency 
among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded 
death. He remembered certain things that priests had 
said in his infancy, and his mother—not the one at New 
York—starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a 
husband’s soul in torment. It is well to be of a cultured 
intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak human 
mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and 
if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, 
the death he would have to face would be physically 
painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations. 
Mulcahy could see himself, as he lay on the earth in the 
night, dying by various causes. They were all horrible; 
the mother in New York was very far away, and the 
Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 287 


you forward whether you will or won’t, was daily coming 
closer to the enemy! 


They were brought to the field of Marzun-Katai, and 
with the Black Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that 
has never been set down in the newspapers. In response, 
many believe, to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis, 
the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, but made 
a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish mothers knew 
later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across 
the open in shouting masses, and were pot-valiant 
in artillery. It was expedient to hold a large reserve 
and wait for the psychological moment that was being 
prepared by the shrieking shrapnel. Therefore the 
Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill 
to watch the play till their call should come. Father 
Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the 
trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make 
his way to the foremost of his boys and lay like a black 
porpoise, at length on the grass. To him crawled Mul- 
cahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution. 

‘Wait till you’re shot,’ said Father Dennis sweetly. 
“There’s a time for everything.’ 

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time 
into the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned 
and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke 
like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general 
heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots fol- 
lowed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested. 
The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose 
and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their 
companies. 

This manceuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a 


288 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. 
You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though 
you know that you are a mark for every rifle within 
extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you 
must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards 
through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze 
brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather 
cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the 
appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the 
nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for 
half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; 
English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, 
while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward 
by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. 
The truly wise commandant of highly strung troops 
allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of 
their own voices uplifted in song. There is a legend of an 
English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting 
‘Sam Hall,’ to the horror of its newly appointed and pious 
colonel. The Black Boneens, who were suffering more 
than the Mavericks, on a hill half a mile away, began 
presently to explain to all who cared to listen— 


We'll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea, 
And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh. 


‘Sing, boys,’ said Father Dennis softly. ‘It looks as 
if we cared for their Afghan peas.’ 

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his 
mouth in a song imparted to him, as to most of his com- 
rades, in the strictest confidence by Mulcahy—the 
Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting on the grass, the 
chill fear of death upon him. 

Company after company caught up the words which, 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 289 


the I. A. A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin, 
and to breathe which, except to those duly appointed 
to hear,is death. Wherefore they are printed in this 
place. 


The Saxon in Heaven’s just balance is weighed, 

His doom like Belshazzar’s in death has been cast, 
And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed 

Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past. 


They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a 
swirl; the I. A. A. are better served by their pens than 
their petards. Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the 
back, asking him to sing up. The officers lay down 
again. ‘There was no need to walk any more. Their 
men were soothing themselves thunderously, thus— 


St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow 
That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood, 
From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough, 
Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood! 


‘T’ll speak to you after all’s over,’ said Father Dennis 
authoritatively in Dan’s ear. ‘What’s the use of con- 
fessing to me when you do this foolishness? Dan, you’ve 
been playing with fire! Ill lay you more penance in a 
week than ; 

‘Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The 
Boneens are on the move; they’ll let us go now!’ 

The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one 
man; but one man there was who rose more swiftly than 
all the others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the 
fleshy part of his leg. 

‘You’ve got to do it,’ said Dan grimly. ‘Do it decent, 
anyhow;’ and the roar of the rush drowned his words, 





290 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


for the rear companies thrust forward the first, still sing- 
ing as they swung down the slope— 


From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough 
Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood! 


They should have sung it in the face of England, not 
of the Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the 
wild Irish yell. 

‘They came down singing,’ said the unofficial report of 
the enemy, borne from village to village the next day. 
‘They continued to sing, and it was written that our men 
could not abide when they came. It is believed that 
there was magic in the aforesaid song.’ 

Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neigh- 
dourhood of Mulcahy. Twice the man would have 
bolted back in the confusion. Twice he was heaved, 
kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable 
inferno of a hotly contested charge. 

At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him 
into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes star- 
ing at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breath- 
ing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while 
Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud 
wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail 
and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan 
who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the 
straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent 
souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on 
the muzzle of a gun as his companions danced among the 
gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from that 
battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retir- 
ing in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost 
helmet and belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in 


b] 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 2091 


the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and distressed, 
had thrown themselves down on the ground by the 
captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy’s charge. 

‘Mad,’ said Horse Egan critically. ‘Mad with fear! 
He’s going straight to his death, an’ shouting’s no use.’ 

‘Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him, 
maybe.’ 

The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the 
noise of shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready 
to hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners. 
Mulcahy tore on, sobbing; the straight-held blade went 
home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched 
forward almost before a shot from Dan’s rifle brought 
down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan 
retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their 
dead. 

‘He was given the point and that was an easy death,’ 
said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. ‘But would you 
ha’ shot him, Danny, if he had lived?’ 

‘He didn’t live, so there’s no sayin’. But I doubt I 
wud have bekase of the fun he gave us—let alone the 
beer. Hike up his legs, Horse, and we’ll bring him in. 
Perhaps ’tis better this way.’ 

They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the 
regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their rifles; and there 
was a general snigger when one of the younger subalterns 
said, ‘That was a good man!’ 

‘Phew,’ said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had 
taken over the burden. ‘I’m powerful dhry, and this 
reminds me there’ll be no more beer at all.’ 

‘Fwhy not?’ said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as 
he stretched himself for rest. ‘Are we not conspirin’ all 
we can, an’ while we conspire are we not entitled to free 
dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would not 


202 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


let her son’s comrades perish of drouth—if she can be 
reached at the end of a letter.’ 

‘You’re a janius,’ said Horse Egan. ‘O’ coorse she 
will not. I wish this crool war was over an’ we’d get 
back to canteen. Faith, the Commander-in-Chief ought 
to be hanged in his own little sword-belt for makin’ us 
work on wather.’ 

The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan’s opinion. 
So they made haste to get their work done as soon as 
possible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected 
peace. ‘We can fight the sons of Adam,’ said the tribes- 
men, ‘but we cannot fight the sons of Eblis, and this © 
regiment never stays still in one place. Let us therefore 
come in.’ They came in and ‘this regiment’ withdrew 
to conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady. 

Excellent as a subordinate Dan failed altogether as a 
chief-in-command—possibly because he was too much 
swayed by the advice of the only man in the regiment who 
could manufacture more than one kind of handwriting. 
The same mail that bore to Mulcahy’s mother in New 
York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly 
her son had fought for the Queen, and how assuredly he 
would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross had 
he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve 
to say, by that same colonel and all the officers of the 
regiment, explaining their willingness to do ‘anything 
which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of 
revolutions’ if only a little money could be forwarded 
to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, 
would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who ‘was unwell at 
this present time of writing.’ 

Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama 
Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief 
as they were bitter. The Third Three read and looked 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 293 


at each other. Then the Second Conspirator—he who 
believed in ‘joining hands with the practical branches’— 
began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said, 
‘Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We’re 
left again. Those cursed Irish have letusdown. Iknew 
they would, but’—here he laughed afresh—‘I’d give 
considerable to know what was at the back of it all.’ 

His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen 
Dan Grady, discredited regimental conspirater, trying to 
explain to his thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival 
of funds from New York. 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


Your Gods and my Gods—do you or I know which are the stronger? 
Native Proverb. 


East of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Providence 
ceases; Man being there handed over to the power of the 
Gods and Devils of Asia, and the Church of England 
Providence only exercising an occasional and modified 
supervision in the case of Englishmen. 

This theory accounts for some of the more unnecessary 
horrors of life in India: it may be stretched to explain 
my story. 

My friend Strickland of the Police, who knows as 
much of natives of India as is good for any man, can bear 
witness to the facts of the case. Dumoise, our doctor, 
also saw what Strickland and I saw. The inference 
which he drew from the evidence was entirely incorrect. 
He is dead now; he died, in a rather curious manner, 
which has been elsewhere described. 

When Fleete came to India he owned a little money 
and some land in the Himalayas, near a place called 
Dharmsala. Both properties had been left him by an 
uncle, and he came out to finance them. He was a big, 
heavy, genial, and inoffensive man. His knowledge of 
natives was, of course, limited, and he complained of the 
difficulties of the language. 

He rode in from his place in the hills to spend New 
Year in the station, and he stayed with Strickland. On 
New Year’s Eve there was a big dinner at the club, and 


294 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 295 


the night was excusably wet. When men foregather 
from the uttermost ends of the Empire, they have a right 
to be riotous. The Frontier had sent down a contingent 
o’ Catch-’em-Alive-O’s who had not seen twenty white 
faces for a year, and were used to ride fifteen miles to 
dinner at the next Fort at the risk of a Khyberce bullet 
where their drinks should lie. They profited by their new 
security, for they tried to play pool with a curled-up 
hedgehog found in the garden, and one of them carried 
the marker round the room in his teeth. Half a dozen 
planters had come in from the south and were talking 
‘horse’ to the Biggest Liar in Asia, who was trying to 
cap all their stories at once. Everybody was there, and 
there was a general closing up of ranks and taking stock 
of our losses in dead or disabled that had fallen during 
the past year. It was a very wet night, and I remember 
that we sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with our feet in the Polo 
Championship Cup, and our heads among the stars, and 
swore that we were all dear friends. Then some of us 
went away and annexed Burma, and some tried to open 
up the Soudan and were opened up by Fuzzies in that 
cruel scrub outside Suakim, and some found stars and 
medals, and some were married, which was bad, and some 
did other things which were worse, and the others of us 
stayed in our chains and strove to make money on 
insufficient experiences. 

Fleete began the night with sherry and bitters, drank 
champagne steadily up to dessert, then raw, rasping 
Capri with all the strength of whisky, took Benedictine 
with his coffee, four or five whiskies and sodas to im- 
prove his pool strokes, beer and bones at half-past two, 
winding up with old brandy. Consequently, when he 
came out, at half-past three in the morning, into four- 
teen degrees of frost, he was very angry with his horse 


2096 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


for coughing, and tried to leapfrog into the saddle. The 
horse broke away and went to his stables; so Strickland 
and I formed a Guard of Dishonour to take Fleete home. 

Our road lay through the bazaar, close to a little 
temple of Hanuman, the Monkey-god, who is a leading 
divinity worthy of respect. All gods have good points, 
just as have all priests. Personally, I attach much 
importance to Hanuman, and am kind to his people—the 
great gray apes of the hills. One never knows when one 
may want a friend. 

There was a light in the temple, and as we passed, we 
could hear voices of men chanting hymns. In a native 
temple, the priests rise at all hours of the night to do 
honour to their god. Before we could stop him, Fleete 
dashed up the steps, patted two priests on the back, and 
was gravely grinding the ashes of his cigar-butt into the 
forehead of the red stone image of Hanuman. Strick- 
land tried to drag him out, but he sat down and said 
solemnly: 

‘Shee that? "Mark of the B—beasht! J made it. 
Ishn’t it fine?’ 

In half a minute the temple was alive and noisy, and 
Strickland, who knew what came of polluting gods, said 
that things might occur. He, by virtue of his official 
position, long residence in the country, and weakness for 
going among the natives, was known to the priests and 
he felt unhappy. Fleete sat on the ground and refused 
tomove. He said that ‘good old Hanuman’ made a very 
soft pillow. 

Then, without any warning, a Silver Man came out of 
a recess behind the image of the god. He was perfectly 
naked in that bitter, bitter cold, and his body shone like 
frosted silver, for he was what the Bible calls ‘a leper as 
white as snow.’ Also he had no face, because he was 3 


é 
SE ae 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 207 


leper of some years’ standing and his disease was heavy 
upen him. We two stooped to haul Fleete up, and the 
temple was filling and filling with folk who seemed to | 
spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under 
our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an 
otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head 
on Fleete’s breast before we could wrench him away. 
Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the 
crowd blocked all the doors. 

The priests were very angry until the Silver Man 
touched Fleete. That nuzzling seemed to sober them. 

At the end of a few minutes’ silence one of the priests 
came to Strickland and said, in perfect English, ‘Take 
your friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but 
Hanuman has not done with him.’ The crowd gave 
room and we carried Fleete into the road. 

Strickland was very angry. He said that we might all 
three have been knifed, and that Fleete should thank his 
stars that he had escaped without injury. 

Fleete thanked no one. He said that he wanted to go 
to bed. He was gorgeously drunk. 

We moved on, Strickland silent and wrathful, until 
Fleete was taken with violent shivering fits and sweating. 
He said that the smells of the bazaar were overpowering, 
and he wondered why slaughter-houses were permitted so 
near English residences. ‘Can’t you smell the blood?’ 
said Fleete. 

We put him to bed at last, just as the dawn was 
breaking, and Strickland invited me to have another 
whisky and soda. While we were drinking he talked 
of the trouble in the temple, and admitted that it baffied 
him completely. Strickland hates being mystified by 
natives, because his business in life is to overmatch them 
with their own weapons. He has not yet succeeded in 


298 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


doing this, but in fifteen or twenty years he will have 
made some small progress. 

‘They should have mauled us,’ he said, ‘instead of 
mewing at us. I wonder what they meant. I don’t 
like it one little bit.’ 

I said that the Managing Committee of the temple 
would in all probability bring a criminal action against 
us for insulting their religion. There was a section of 
the Indian Penal Code which exactly met Fleete’s offence. 
Strickland said he only hoped and prayed that they would 
do this. Before I left I looked into Fleete’s room, and 
saw him lying on his right side, scratching his left breast. 
Then I went to bed cold, depressed, and unhappy, at 
seven o’clock in the morning. 

At one o’clock I rode over to Strickland’s house to 
inquire after Fleete’s head. I imagined that it would 
be a sore one. Fleete was breakfasting and seemed un- 
well. His temper was gone, for he was abusing the cook 
for not supplying him with an underdone chop. A man 
who can eat raw meat after a wet night is a curiosity. I 
told Fleete this and he laughed. 

“You breed queer mosquitoes in these parts,’ he said. 
‘I’ve been bitten to pieces, but only in one place.’ 

‘Let’s have a look at the bite,’ said Strickland. ‘It 
may have gone down since this morning.’ 

While the chops were being cooked, Fleete opened 
his shirt and showed us, just over his left breast, a mark, 
the perfect double of the black rosettes—the five or six 
irregular blotches arranged in a circle—on a leopard’s hide. 
Strickland looked and said, ‘It was only pink this morn- 
ing. It’s grown black now.’ 

Fleete ran to a glass. 

‘By Jove!’ he said, ‘thisisnasty. What isit?’ 

We could not answer. Here the chops came in, ail 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 299 


red and juicy, and Fleete bolted three in a most offensive 
manner. He ate on his right grinders only, and threw 
his head over his right shoulder as he snapped the meat. 
When he had finished, it struck him that he had been 
behaving strangely, for he said apologetically, ‘I don’t 
think I ever felt so hungry in my life. I’ve bolted like 
an ostrich.’ 

After breakfast Strickland said to me, ‘Don’t go. 
Stay here, and stay for the night.’ 

Seeing that my house was not three miles from Strick- 
land’s, this request was absurd. But Strickland insisted, 
and was going to say something when Fleete interrupted 
by declaring in a shamefaced way that he felt hungry 
again. Strickland sent a man to my house to fetch over 
my bedding and a horse, and we three went down to 
Strickland’s stables to pass the hours until it was time 
to go out for a ride. The man who has a weakness for 
horses never wearies of inspecting them; and when two 
men are killing time in this way they gather knowledge 
and lies the one from the other. 

There were five horses in the stables, and I shall never 
forget the scene as we tried to look them over. They 
seemed to have gone mad. They reared and screamed 
and nearly tore up their pickets; they sweated and 
shivered and lathered and were distraught with fear. 
Strickland’s horses used to know him as well as his dogs; 
which made the matter more curious. We left the stable 
for fear of the brutes throwing themselves in their panic. 
Then Strickland turned back and called me. The horses 
were still frightened, but they let us ‘gentle’ and make 
much of them, and put their heads in our bosoms. 

‘They aren’t afraid of ws,’ said Strickland. ‘D’you 
know, I’d give three months’ pay if Ouérage here could 
talk.’ 


300 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


But Outrage was dumb, and could only cuddle up to 
his master and blow out his nostrils, as is the custom of 
horses when they wish to explain things but can’t. Fleete 
came up when we were in the stalls, and as soon as the 
horses saw him, their fright broke out afresh. It was 
all that we could do to escape from the place unkicked. 
Strickland said, ‘They don’t seem to love you, Fleete.’ 

‘Nonsense,’ said Fleete; ‘my mare will follow me 
like a dog.’ He went to her; she was in a loose-box; 
but as he slipped the bars she plunged, knocked him 
down, and broke away into the garden. I laughed, but 
Strickland was not amused. He took his moustache in 
both fists and pulled at it till it nearly came out. Fleete, 
instead of going off to chase his property, yawned, saying 
that he felt sleepy. He went to the house to lie down, 
which was a foolish way of spending New Year’s Day. 

Strickland sat with me in the stables and asked if I 
had noticed anything peculiar in Fleete’s manner. I said 
that he ate his food like a beast; but that this might 
have been the result of living alone in the hills out of 
the reach of society as refined and elevating as ours for 
instance. Strickland was not amused. I do not think 
that he listened to me, for his next sentence referred to 
the mark on Fleete’s breast, and I said that it might 
have been caused by blister-flies, or that it was possibly a 
birth-mark newly born and now visible for the first time. 
We both agreed that it was unpleasant to look at, and 
Strickland found occasion to say that I was a fool. 

‘I can’t tell you what I think now,’ said he, ‘because 
you would call me a madman; but you must stay with 
me for the next few days, 1f you can. I want you to 
watch Fleete, but don’t tell me what you think till I have 
made up my mind.’ 

‘But I am dining out to-night,’ I said. 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 301 


So am I,’ said Strickland, ‘and so is Fleete. At 
least if he doesn’t change his mind.’ 

We walked about the garden smoking, but saying 
nothing—because we were friends, and talking spoils 
good tobacco—till our pipes were out. Then we went 
to wake up Fleete. He was wide awake and fidgeting 
about his room. 

‘I say, I want some more chops,’ he said. ‘Can I 
get them?’ 

We laughed and said, ‘Go and change. The ponies 
will be round in a minute.’ 

‘All right,’ said Fleete. ‘Il go when I get the 
chops—underdone ones, mind.’ 

He seemed to be quite in earnest. It was four o’clock, 
and we had had breakfast at one; still, for a long time, 
he demanded those underdone chops. Then he changed 
into riding clothes and went out into the verandah. 
His pony—the mare had not been caught—would not 
let him come near. All three horses were unmanageable 
—mad with fear—and finally Fleete said that he would 
stay at home and get something to eat. Strickland and 
I rode out wondering. As we passed the temple of 
Hanuman, the Silver Man came out and mewed at us. 

‘He is not one of the regular priests of the temple,’ 
said Strickland. ‘I think I should peculiarly like to lay 
my hands on him.’ 

There was no spring in our gallop on the racecourse 
that evening. The horses were stale, and moved as 
though they had been ridden out. 

“The fright after breakfast has been too much for 
them,’ said Strickland. 

That was the only remark he made through the re- 
mainder of the ride. Once or twice I think he swore to 
himself; but that did not count. 


302 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


We came back in the dark at seven o’clock, and saw 
that there were no lights in the bungalow. ‘Careless 
ruffians my servants are!’ said Strickland. 

My horse reared at something on the carriage drive, 
and Fleete stood up under its nose. 

‘What are you doing, grovelling about the garden?’ 
said Strickland. 

But both horses bolted and nearly threw us. We 
dismounted by the stables and returned to Fleete, who 
was on his hands and knees under the orange-bushes. 

‘What the devil’s wrong with you?’ said Strickland. 

‘Nothing, nothing in the world,’ said Fleete, speaking 
very quickly and thickly. ‘I’ve been gardening—botan- 
ising you know. The smell of the earth is delightful. 
I think I’m going for a walk—a long walk—all night.’ 

Then I saw that there was something excessively out 
of order somewhere, and I said to Strickland, ‘I am not 
dining out.’ 

‘Bless you!’ said Strickland. ‘Here, Fleete, get up. 
Youw’ll catch fever there. Come in to dinner and let’s 
have the lamps lit. We’ll all dine at home.’ 

Fleete stood up unwillingly, and said, ‘No lamps—no 
lamps. It’s much nicer here. Let’s dine outside and 
have some more chops—lots of ’em and underdone— 
bloody ones with gristle.’ 

Now a December evening in Northern India is bit- 
terly cold, and Fleete’s suggestion was that of a maniac. 

‘Come in,’ said Strickland sternly. ‘Come in at 
once.’ 

Fleete came, and when the lamps were brought, we 
saw that he was literally plastered with dirt from head 
to foot. He must have been rolling in the garden. He 
shrank from the light and went to his room. His eyes 
were horrible to look at. There was a green light behind 





THE MARK OF THE BEAST 303 


them, not in them, if you understand, and the man’s 
Jower lip hung down. 

Strickland said, ‘There is going to be trouble—big 
trouble—to-night. Don’t you change your riding-things.’ 

We waited and waited for Fleete’s reappearance, and 
ordered dinner in the meantime. We could hear him 
moving about his own room, but there was no light there. 
Presently from the room came the long-drawn howl of a 
wolf. 

People write and talk lightly of blood running cold 
and hair standing up and things of that kind. Both 
sensations are too horrible to be trifled with. My heart 
stopped as though a knife had been driven through it, 
- and Strickland turned as white as the tablecloth. 

The howl was repeated, and was answered by another 
how! far across the fields. 

That set the gilded roof on the horror. Strickland 
dashed into Fleete’s room. I followed, and we saw 
Fleete getting out of the window. He made beast-noises 
in the back of his throat. He could not answer us when 
we shouted at him. He spat. 

I don’t quite remember what followed, but I think 
that Strickland must have stunned him with the long 
boot-jack or else I should never have been able to sit on 
his chest. Fleete could not speak, he could only snarl, 
and his snarls were those of a wolf, not of aman. ‘The 
human spirit must have been giving way all day and 
have died out with the twilight. We were dealing with 
a beast that had once been Fleete. 

The affair was beyond any human and rational ex- 
perience. I tried to say ‘Hydrophobia,’ but the word 
wouldn’t come, because I knew that I was lying. 

We bound this beast with leather thongs of the punkah- 
rope, and tied its thumbs and big toes together, and 


304 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


gagged it with a shoe-horn, which makes a very efficient 
gag if you know how to arrange it. Then we carried it 
into the dining-room, and sent a man to Dumoise, the 
doctor, telling him to come over at once. After we had 
despatched the messenger and were drawing breath, 
Strickland said, ‘It’s no good. This isn’t any doctor’s 
work.’ I, also, knew that he spoke the truth. 

The beast’s head was free, and it threw it about from 
side to side. Any one entering the room would have be- 
Vieved that we were curing a wolf’s pelt. That was the 
most loathsome accessory of all. 

Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of his fist, 
watching the beast as it wriggled on the ground, but say- 
ing nothing. The shirt had been torn open in the scuffle ° 
and showed the black rosette mark on the left breast. It 
stood out like a blister. 

In the silence of the watching we heard something 
without mewing like a she-otter. We both rose to our 
feet, and, I answer for myself, not Strickland, felt sick— 
actually and physically sick. We told each other, as did 
the men in Pinafore, that it was the cat. 

Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a little man so 
unprofessionally shocked. He said that it was a heart- 
rending case of hydrophobia, and that nothing could 
be done. At least any palliative measures would only 
prolong the agony. The beast was foaming at the 
mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been bitten 
by dogs once or twice. Any man who keeps half a 
dozen terriers must expect a nip now and again. Du- 
moise could offer no help. He could only certify that 
Fleete was dying of hydrophobia. The beast was then 
howling, for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn. 
Dumoise said that he would be ready to certify to the 
cause of death, and that the end was certain. He was 


" THE MARK OF THE BEAST 305 


a good little man, and he offered to remain with us; but 
Strickland refused the kindness. He did not wish to 
poison Dumoise’s New Year. He would only ask 
him not to give the real cause of Fleete’s death to the | 
public. 

So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as soon as the 
noise of the cart-wheels had died away, Strickland told 
me, in a whisper, his suspicions. They were so wildly 
improbable that he dared not say them out aloud; and 
I, who entertained all Strickland’s beliefs, was so ashamed 
of owning to them that I pretended to disbelieve. 

‘Even if the Silver Man had bewtiched Fleete for 

polluting the image of Hanuman, the punishment could 
not have fallen so quickly.’ 
- As I was whispering this the cry outside the house 
rose again, and the beast fell into a fresh paroxysm 
of struggling till we were afraid that the thongs that 
held it would give way. 

‘Watch!’ said Strickland. ‘If this happens six times 
I shall take the law into my own hands. I order you to 
help me.’ 

He went into his room and came out in a few minutes 
with the barrels of an old shot-gun, a piece of fishing- 
line, some thick cord, and his heavy wooden bedstead. 
I reported that the convulsions had followed the cry by 
two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed percepti- 
bly weaker. 

Strickland muttered, ‘But he can’t take away the 
life! He can’t take away the life!’ 

I said, though I knew that I was arguing against my- 
self, ‘It may be a cat. It must beacat. If the Silver 
Man is responsible, why does he dare to come here?’ 

Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, put the 
gun-barrels into the glow of the fire, spread the twine on 


306 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


the table and broke a walking stick in two. There was 
one yard of fishing line, gut, lapped with wire, such as 
is used for mahseer-fishing, and he tied the two ends 
together in a loop. 

Then he said, ‘How can we catch him? He must be 
taken alive and unhurt.’ 

I said that we must trust in Providence, and go out 
softly with polo-sticks into the shrubbery at the front of 
the house. The man or animal that made the cry was 
evidently moving round the house as regularly as a 
night-watchman. We could wait in the bushes till 
he came by and knock him over. 

Strickland accepted this suggestion, and we slipped 
out from a bath-room window into the front verandah 
and then across the carriage drive into the bushes. 

In the moonlight we could see the leper coming round 
the corner of the house. He was perfectly naked, and 
irom time to time he mewed and stopped to dance with 
his shadow. It was an unattractive sight, and thinking 
of poor Fleete, brought to such degradation by so foul a 
creature, I put away all my doubts and resolved to help 
Strickland from the heated gun-barrels to the loop of 
twine—from the loins to the head and back again— 
with all tortures that might be needful. 

The leper halted in the front porch for a moment and 
we jumped out on him with the sticks. He was wonder- 
fully strong, and we were afraid that he might escape or 
be fatally injured before we caught him. We had an 
idea that lepers were frail creatures, but this proved 
to be incorrect. Strickland knocked his legs from 
under him and I put my foot on his neck. He mewed 
hideously, and even through my riding-boots I could feel 
that his flesh was not the flesh of a clean man. 

He struck at us with his hand and feet-stumps. We 


“THE MARK OF THE BEAST 307 


looped the lash of a dog-whip round him, under the arm- 
pits, and dragged him backwards into the hall and so 
into the dining-room where the beast lay. There we 
tied him with trunk-straps. He made no attempt to 
escape, but mewed. 

When we confronted him with the beast the scene 
was beyond description. The beast doubled backwards 
into a bow as though he had been poisoned with styrch- 
nine, and moaned in the most pitiable fashion. Several 
other things happened also, but they cannot be put down 
here. 

‘T think I was right,’ said Strickland. ‘Now we will 
ask him to cure this case.’ 

But the leper only mewed. Strickland wrapped a 
towel round his hand and took the gun-barrels out of the 
fire. I put the half of the broken walking stick through 
the loop of fishing-line and buckled the leper comfortably 
to Strickland’s bedstead. I understood then how men 
and women and little children can endure to see a witch 
burnt alive; for the beast was moaning on the floor, and 
though the Silver Man had no face, you could see horrible 
feelings passing through the slab that took its place, 
exactly as waves of heat play across red-hot iron—gun- 
barrels for instance. 

Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands for a mo- 
ment and we got to work. This part is not to be printed. 


The dawn was beginning to break when the leper 
spoke. His mewings had not been satisfactory up to 
that point. The beast had fainted from exhaustion and 
the house was very still. We unstrapped the leper and 
told him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled to the 
beast and laid his hand upon the left breast. That was 


308 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


all. Then he fell face down and whined, drawing in his 
breath as he did so. 

We watched the face of the beast, and saw the soul of 
Fleete coming back into the eyes. Then a sweat broke 
out on the forehead and the eyes—they were human eyes 
—closed. We waited for an hour but Fleete still slept. 
We carried him to his room and bade the leper go, giving 
him the bedstead, and the sheet on the bedstead to cover 
his nakedness, the gloves and the towels with which we 
had touched him, and the whip that had been hooked 
round his body. He put the sheet about him and 
went out into the early morning without speaking or 
mewing. 

Strickland wiped his face and sat down. A night- 
gong, far away in the city, made seven o’clock. 

‘Exactly four-and-twenty hours!’ said Strickland. 
‘And I’ve done enough to ensure my dismissal from the 
service, besides permanent quarters in a lunatic asylum. 
Do you believe that we are awake?’ 

The red-hot gun-barrel had fallen on the floor 
and was singeing the carpet. The smell was entirely 
real. 

That morning at eleven we two together went to 
wake up Fleete. We looked and saw that the black 
leopard-rosette on his chest had disappeared. He was 
very drowsy and tired, but as soon as he saw us, he said, 
‘Oh! Confound you fellows. Elappy New Year to you. 
Never mix your liquors. I’m nearly dead.’ 

‘Thanks for your kindness, but you’re over time,’ said 
Strickland. ‘To-day is the morning of the second, 
You’ve slept the clock round with a vengeance.’ 

The door opened, and little Dumoise put his head in. 
He had come on foot, and fancied that we were laying 
out Fleete. 


“THE MARK OF THE BEAST 309 


‘I’ve brought a nurse,’ said Dumoise. ‘I suppose that 
she cancomeinfor . . . what is necessary.’ 

‘By all means,’ said Fleete cheerily, sitting up in bed. 
‘Bring on your nurses.’ 

Dumoise was dumb. Strickland led him out and 
explained that there must have been a mistake in the 
diagnosis. Dumoise remained dumb and left the house 
hastily. He considered that his professional reputation 
had been injured, and was inclined to make a personal 
matter of the recovery. Strickland went out too. When 
he came back, he said that he had been to call on the 
Temple of Hanuman to offer redress for the pollution of 
the god, and had been solemnly assured that no white 
man had ever touched the idol and that he was an incar- 
nation of all the virtues labouring under a delusion. 
‘What do you think?’ said Strickland. 

I said, ‘“‘There are more things . . 

But Strickland hates that quotation. He says that I 
have worn it threadbare. 

One other curious thing happened which frightened 
me as much as anything in all the night’s work. When 
Fleete was dressed he came into the dining-room and 
sniffed. He had a quaint trick of moving his nose when 
he sniffed. ‘Horrid doggy smell, here,’ said he. ‘You 
should really keep those terriers of yours in better order. 
Try sulphur, Strick.’ 

But Strickland did not answer. He caught hold of 
the back of a chair, and, without warning, went into an 
amazing fit of hysterics. It is terrible to see a strong 
man overtaken with hysteria. Then it struck me that 
we had fought for Fleete’s soul with the Silver Man in 
that room, and had disgraced ourselves as Englishmen 
for ever, and I laughed and gasped and gurgled just as 
shamefully as Strickland, while Fete thought that we 


999 


Io LIFE’S HANDICAP 


had both gone mad. We never told him what we had 
done. 

Some years later, when Strickland had married and 
was a church-going member of society for his wife’s sake, 
we reviewed the incident dispassionately, and Strickland 
suggested that I should put it before the public. 

I cannot myself see that this step is likely to clear 
up the mystery; because, in the first place, no one will 
believe a rather unpleasant story, and, in the second, it 
is well known to every right-minded man that the gods 
of the heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt to 
deal with them otherwise is justly condemned. 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 


The doors were wide, the story saith, 
Out of the night came the patient wraith, 
He might not speak, and he could not stir 
A hair of the Baron’s minniver— 
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin, 
He roved the castle to seek his kin. 
And oh, ’twas a piteous thing to see 
The dumb ghost follow his enemy! 
The Baron, 


Imray achieved the impossible. Without warning, foe 
no conceivable motive, in his youth, at the threshold of 
his career he chose to disappear from the world—which 
is to say, the little Indian station where he lived. 

Upon a day he was alive, well, happy, and in great 
evidence among the billiard-tables at his Club. Upon 
a morning, he was not, and no manner of search could 
make sure where he might be. He had stepped out of 
his place; he had not appeared at his office at the proper 
time, and his dogcart was not upon the public roads. 
For these reasons, and because he was hampering, in 2 
microscopical degree, the administration of the Indian 
Empire, that Empire paused for one microscopical mo- 
ment to make inquiry into the fate of Imray. Ponds 
were dragged, wells were plumbed, telegrams were de- 
spatched down the lines of railways and to the nearest 
seaport town—twelve hundred miles away; but Imray 
was not at the end of the drag-ropes nor the telegraph 
wires. He was gone, and his place knew him no more. 


311 


312 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Then the work of the great Indian Empire swept for. 
ward, because it could not be delayed, and Imray from 
being a man became a mystery—such a thing as men talk 
over at their tables in the Club for a month, and then 
forget utterly. His guns, horses, and carts were sold to 
the highest bidder. His superior officer wrote an alto- 
gether absurd letter to his mother, saying that Imray 
had unaccountably disappeared, and his bungalow stood 
empty. 

After three or four months of the scorching hot 
weather had gone by, my friend Strickland, of the Police, 
saw fit to rent the bungalow from the native landlord. 
This was before he was engaged to Miss Youghal—an 
affair which has been described in another place—and 
while he was pursuing his investigations into native life. 
His own life was sufficiently peculiar, and men com- 
plained of his manners and customs. There was always 
food in his house, but there were no regular times for 
meals. He ate, standing up and walking about, whatever 
he might find at the sideboard, and this is not good for 
human beings. His domestic equipment was limited to 
six rifles, three shot-guns, five saddles, and a collection 
of stiff-jointed mahseer-rods, bigger and stronger than the 
largest salmon-rods. These occupied one-half of his 
bungalow, and the other half was given up to Strickland 
and his dog Tietjens—an enormous Rampur slut who 
devoured daily the rations of two men. She spoke te 
Strickland in a language of her own; and whenever, walk- 
ing abroad, she saw things calculated to destroy the 
peace of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress, she returned 
to her master and laid information. Strickland would 
take steps at once, and the end of his labours was trouble 
and fine and imprisonment for other people. The natives 
believed that Tietjens was a familiar spirit, and treated 


' THE RETURN OF IMRAY 313 


her with the great reverence that is born of hate and 
fear. One room in the bungalow was set apart for her 
special use. She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a 
drinking-trough, and if any one came into Strickland’s 
room at night her custom was to knock down the invader 
and give tongue till some one came with a light. Strick- 
land owed his life to her, when he was on the Frontier, 
in search of a local murderer, who came in the gray dawn 
to send Strickland much farther than the Andaman 
Islands. Tietjens caught the man as he was crawling 
into Strickland’s tent with a dagger between his teeth; 
and after his record of iniquity was established in the 
eyes of the law he was hanged. From that date Tietjens 
wore a collar of rough silver, and employed a monogram 
on her night-blanket; and the blanket was of double 
woven Kashmir cloth, for she was a delicate dog. 

Under no circumstances would she be separated from 
Strickland; and once, when he was ill with fever, made 
great trouble for the doctors, because she did not know 
how to help her master and would not allow another 
creature to attempt aid. Macarnaght, of the Indian 
Medical Service, beat her over her head with a gun-butt 
before she could understand that she must give room for 
those who could give quinine. 

A short time after Strickland had taken Imray’s 
bungalow, my business took me through that Station, 
and naturally, the Club quarters being full, I quartered 
myself upon Strickland. It was a desirable bungalow, 
eight-roomed and heavily thatched against any chance 
of leakage from rain. Under the pitch of the roof ran a 
ceiling-cloth which looked just as neat as a white-washed 
ceiling. The landlord had repainted it when Strickland 
took the bungalow. Unless you knew how Indian bunga- 
lows were built you would never have suspected that 


314 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


above the cloth lay the dark three-cornered cavern of the 
roof, where the beams and the underside of the thatch 
harboured all manner of rats, bats, ants, and foul things. 

Tietjens met me in the verandah with a bay like the 
boom of the bell of St. Paul’s, putting her paws on my 
shoulder to show she was glad to see me. Strickland 
had contrived to claw together a sort of meal which he 
called lunch, and immediately after it was finished went 
out about his business. I was left alone with Tietjens 
and my own affairs. ‘The heat of the summer had broken 
up and turned to the warm damp of the rains. There 
was no motion in the heated air, but the rain fell like 
ramrods on the earth, and flung up a blue mist when it 
splashed back. The bamboos, and the custard-apples, 
the poinsettias, and the mango-trees in the garden stood 
still while the warm water lashed through them, and the 
frogs began to sing among the aloe hedges. A little 
before the light failed, and when the rain was at its worst, 
I sat in the back verandah and heard the water roar from 
the eaves, and scratched myself because I was covered 
with the thing called prickly-heat. Tietjens came out 
with me and put her head in my lap and was very sor- 
rowful; so I gave her biscuits when tea was ready, and I 
took tea in the back verandah on account of the little 
coolness found there. The rooms of the house were dark 
behind me. I could smell Strickland’s saddlery and the 
oil on his guns, and I had no desire to sit among these 
things. My own servant came to me in the twilight, the 
muslin of his clothes clinging tightly to his drenched 
body, and told me that a gentleman had called and wished 
to see some one. Very much against my will, but only 
because of the darkness of the rooms, I went into the 
naked drawing-room, telling my man to bring the lights. 
There might or might not have been a caller waiting—it 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 31% 


seemed to me that I saw a figure by one of the windows— 
but when the lights came there was nothing save the 
spikes of the rain without, and the smell of the drinking 
earth in my nostrils. I explained to my servant that he 
was no wiser than he ought to be, and went back to the 
verandah to talk to Tietjens. She had gone out into the 
wet, and I could hardly coax her back to me; even with 
biscuits with sugar tops. Strickland came home, dripping 
wet, just before dinner, and the first thing he said was. 

‘Has any one called?’ 

I explained, with apologies, that my servant had 
summoned me into the drawing-room on a false alarm; 
or that some loafer had tried to call on Strickland, and 
thinking better of it had fled after giving his name. 
Strickland ordered dinner, without comment, and since it 
was a real dinner with a white tablecloth attached, we 
sat down. 

At nine o’clock Strickland wanted to go to bed, and 
I was tired too. ‘Tietjens, who had been lying under- 
neath the table, rose up, and swung into the least exposed 
verandah as soon as her master moved to his own room, 
which was next to the stately chamber set apart for 
Tietjens. If a mere wife had wished to sleep out of 
doors in that pelting rain it would not have mattered; 
but Tietjens was a dog, and therefore the better animal. 
I looked at Strickland, expecting to see him flay her with 
a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would smile after 
telling some unpleasant domestic tragedy. ‘She has 
done this ever since I moved in here,’ said he. ‘Let her 
go.’ 

The dog was Strickland’s dog, so I said nothing, but 
I felt all that Strickland felt in being thus made light 
of. Tietjens encamped outside my bedroom window, and 
storm after storm came up, thundered on the thatch, 


316 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


and died away. ‘The lightning spattered the sky as a 
thrown egg spatters a barn-door, but the light was pale 
blue, not yellow; and, looking through my split bamboo 
blinds, I could see the great dog standing, not sleeping, 
in the verandah, the hackles alift on her back and her 
feet anchored as tensely as the drawn wire-rope of a 
suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the 
thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that some one 
wanted me very urgently. He, whoever he was, was 
trying to call me by name, but his voice was no more 
than ahusky wnisper. The thunder ceased, and Tiet- 
jens went into the garden and howled at the low moon. 
Somebody tried to open my door, walked about and 
about through the house and stood breathing heavily 
in the verandahs, and just when I was falling asleep 
I fancied that I heard a wild hammering and clamour- 
ing above my head or on the door. 

I ran into Strickland’s room and asked him whether 
he was ill, and had been calling for me. He was lying 
on his bed half dressed, a pipe in hismouth. ‘I thought 
you'd come,’ he said. ‘Have I been walking round the 
house recently?’ 

I explained that he had been tramping in the dining- 
room and the smoking-room and two or three other places, 
and he laughed and told me to go back to bed. I went 
back to bed and slept till the morning, but through all 
my mixed dreams I was sure I was doing some one an 
injustice in not attending to his wants. What those 
wants were I could not tell; but a fluttering, whispering, 
bolt-fumbling, lurking, loitering Someone was reproach- 
ing me for my slackness, and, half awake, I heard the 
howling of Tietjens in the garden and the threshing of the 
rain. 

I lived in that house for two days. Strickland went 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 317 


to his office daily, leaving me alone for eight or ten hours 
with Tietjens for my only companion. As long as the 
full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was Tietjens; 
but in the twilight she and I moved into the back verandah 
and cuddled each other for company. We were alone 
in the house, but none the less it was much too fully 
occupied by a tenant with whom I did not wish to inter- 
fere. I never saw him, but I could see the curtains 
between the rooms quivering where he had just passed 
through; I could hear the chairs creaking as the bamboos 
sprung under a weight that had just quitted them; and 
I could feel when I went to get a book from the dining- 
room that somebody was waiting in the shadows of the 
front verandah till I should have gone away. Tietjens 
made the twilight more interesting by glaring into the 
darkened rooms with every hair erect, and following the 
motions of something that I could not see. She never 
entered the rooms, but her eyes moved interestedly: 
that was quite sufficient. Only when my servant came 
to trim the lamps and make all light and habitable she 
would come in with me and spend her time sitting on her 
haunches, watching an invisible extra man as he moved 
about behind my shoulder. Dogs are cheerful compan- 
ions. 

I explained to Strickland, gently as might be, that I 
would go over to the Club and find for myself quarters 
there. I admired his hospitality, was pleased with his 
guns and rods, but I did not much care for his house and 
its atmosphere. He heard me out to the end, and then 
smiled very wearily, but without contempt, for he is a 
man who understands things. ‘Stay on,’ he said, ‘and 
see what this thing means. All you have talked about 
I have known since I took the bungalow. Stay on and 
wait. Tietjens has left me. Are you going too?’ 


318 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


I had seen him through one little affair, connected 
with a heathen idol, that had brought me to the doors 
of a lunatic asylum, and I had no desire to help him 
through further experiences. He was a man to whom 
unpleasantnesses arrived as do dinners to ordinary 
people. 

Therefore I explained more clearly than ever that I 
liked him immensely, and would be happy to see him in 
the daytime; but that I did not care to sleep under his 
roof. This was after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out 
to he in the verandah. 

‘?Pon my soul, I don’t wonder,’ said Strickland, with 
his eyes on the ceiling-cloth. ‘Look at that!’ 

The tails of two brown snakes were hanging between 
the cloth and the cornice of the wall. They threw long 
shadows in the lamplight. 

‘If you are afraid of snakes of course——’ said Strick- 
land. 

I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the 
eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and 
more of the mystery of man’s fall, and that it feels all 
the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted 
from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal, 
and it twists up trouser legs. 

‘You ought to get your thatch overhauled,’ I said. 
‘Give me a mahseer-rod, and we'll poke ’em down.’ 

‘They'll hide among the roof-beams,’ said Strickland. 
‘IT can’t stand snakes overhead. I’m going up into the 
roof. If Ishake ’em down, stand by with a cleaning-rod 
and break their backs.’ 

I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work, 
but I took the cleaning-rod and waited in the dining- 
room, while Strickland brought a gardener’s ladder from 
the verandah, and set it against the side of the room. 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 319 


The snake-tails drew themselves up and disappeared. 
We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies 
running over the baggy ceiling-cloth. Strickland took a 
lamp with him, while I tried to make clear to him the 
danger of hunting roof-snakes between a ceiling-cloth and 
a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused 
by ripping out ceiling-cloths. 

‘Nonsense!’ said Strickland. ‘They’re sure to hide 
near the walls by the cloth. The bricks are too cold for 
‘em, and the heat of the room is just what they like.’ 
He put his hand to the corner of the stuff and ripped it 
from the cornice. It gave with a great sound of tearing, 
and Strickland put his head through the opening into the 
dark of the angle of the roof-beams. I set my teeth and 
lifted the rod, for I had not the least knowledge of what 
might descend. 

‘H’m!’ said Strickland, and his voice rolled and 
rumbled in the roof. ‘There’s room for another set of 
rooms up here, and, by Jove, some one is occupying ’em!’ 

‘Snakes?’ I said from below. 

‘No. It’s a buffalo. Hand me up the two last 
joints of a mahseer-rod, and I’ll prod it. It’s lying on 
the main roof-beam.’ 

I handed up the rod. 

“What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder 
the snakes live here,’ said Strickland, climbing farther 
into the roof. I could see his elbow thrusting with the 
rod. ‘Come out of that, whoever you are! Heads 
below there! It’s falling.’ 

I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre of the 
room bag with a shape that was pressing it downwards 
and downwards towards the lighted lamp on the table. 
I snatched the lamp out of danger and stood back. Then 
the cloth ripped out from the walls, tore. split, swayed, 


320 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


and shot down upon the table something that I dared 
not look at, till Strickland had slid down the ladder and 
was standing by my side. 

He did not say much, being a man of few words; but 
he picked up the loose end of the tablecloth and threw 
it over the remnants on the table. 

‘It strikes me,’ said he, putting down the lamp, ‘our 
friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would 
you?’ 

There was a movement under the cloth, and a little 
snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the 
mahseer-rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks 
worth recording. 

Strickland meditated, and helped himself to drinks. 
The arrangement under the cloth made no more signs of 
life. 

‘Ts it Imray?’ I said. 

Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment, and 
looked. 

‘It is Imray,’ he said; ‘and his throat is cut from ear 
to ear.’ 

Then we spoke, both together and to ourselves: ‘That’s 
why he whispered about the house.’ 

Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A 
little later her great nose heaved open the dining-room 
door. 

She sniffed and was still. The tattered ceiling-cloth 
hung down almost to the level of the table, and there 
was hardly room to move away from the discovery. 

Tietjens came in and sat down; her teeth bared under 
her lip and her forepaws planted. She looked at Strick- 
land. 

‘It’s a bad business, old lady,’ said he. ‘Men don’t 
climb up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 321 


they don’t fasten up the ceiling cloth behind ’em. Let’s 
think it out.’ 

‘Let’s think it out somewhere else,’ I said. 

‘Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We’ll get 
into my room.’ 

I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland’s 
room first, and allowed him to make the darkness. Then 
he followed me, and we lit tobacco and thought. Strick- 
land thought. I smoked furiously, because I was afraid. 

‘Imray is back,’ said Strickland. ‘The question is— 
who killed Imray? Don’t talk, I’ve a notion of my own. 
When I took this bungalow I took over most of Imray’s 
servants. Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn’t 
he?’ 

I agreed; though the heap under the cloth had looked 
neither one thing nor the other. 

‘If I call in all the servants they will stand fast in a 
crowd and lie like Aryans. What do you suggest?’ 

‘Call ’em in one by one,’ I said. 

‘They'll run away and give the news to all their 
fellows,’ said Strickland. ‘We must segregate ’em. Do 
you suppose your servant knows anything about it?’ 

‘He may, for aught I know; but I don’t think it’s 
likely. He has only been here two or three days,’ I 
answered. ‘What’s your notion?’ 

‘T can’t quite tell. How the dickens did the man get 
the wrong side of the ceiling-cloth?’ 

There was a heavy coughing outside Strickland’s 
bedroom door. This showed that Bahadur Khan, his 
body-servant, had waked from sleep and wished to put 
Strickland to bed. 

‘Come in,’ said Strickland. ‘It’s a very warm night, 
isn’t it?’ 

Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot 


322 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Mahomedan, said that it was a very warm night; but 
that there was more rain pending, which, by his Honour’s 
favour, would bring relief to the country. 

‘It will be so, if God pleases,’ said Strickland, tugging 
off his boots. ‘It is in my mind, Bahadur Khan, that I 
have worked thee remorselessly for many days—ever 
since that time when thou first camest into my service. 
What time was that?’ 

‘Has the Heaven-born forgotten? It was when 
Imray Sahib went secretly to Europe without warning 
given; and I—even I—came into the honoured service 
of the protector of the poor.’ 

‘And Imray Sahib went to Europe?’ 

‘It is so said among those who were his servants.’ 

‘And thou wilt take service with him when he re- 
turns?’ 

‘Assuredly, Sahib. He was a good master, and 
cherished his dependants.’ 

‘That is true. Iam very tired, but I go buck-shooting 
to-morrow. Give me the little sharp rifle that I use for 
black-buck; it is in the case yonder.’ 

The man stooped over the case; handed barrels, stock, 
and fore-end to Strickland, who fitted all together, yawn- 
ing dolefully. Then he reached down to the gun-case, 
took a solid-drawn cartridge, and slipped it into the 
breech of the ‘360 Express. 

‘And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe secretly! 
That is very strange, Bahadur Khan, is it not?’ 

‘What do I know of the ways of the white man, 
Heaven-born?’ 

‘Very little, truly. But thou shalt know more anon. 
It has reached me that Imray Sahib has returned from 
his so long journeyings, and that even now he lies in the 
next room, waiting his servant.’ 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 323 


‘Sahib!’ 

The lamplight slid along the barrels of the rifle as 
they levelled themselves at Bahadur Khan’s broad breast. 

‘Go and look!’ said Strickland. ‘Takealamp. Thy 
master is tired, and he waits thee. Go!’ 

The man picked up a lamp, and went into the dining- 
room, Strickland following, and almost pushing him with 
the muzzle of the rifle. He looked for a moment at the 
black depths behind the ceiling-cloth; at the writhing 
snake under foot; and last, a gray glaze settling on his 
face, at the thing under the tablecloth. 

‘Hast thou seen?’ said Strickland after a pause. 

‘I have seen. I am clay in the white man’s hands. 
What does the Presence do?’ 

‘Hang thee within the month. What else?’ 

‘For killing him? Nay, Sahib, consider. Walking 
among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child, 
who was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten 
days he died of the fever—my child!’ 

‘What said Imray Sahib?’ 

‘He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on 
the head; wherefore my child died. Wherefore I killed 
Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he had come back from 
office, and was sleeping. Wherefore I dragged him up 
into the roof-beams and made all fast behind him. The 
Heaven-born knows all things. I am the servant of the 
Heaven-born.’ 

Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in 
the vernacular, ‘Thou art witness to this saying? He 
has killed.’ 

Bahadur Khan stood ashen gray in the light of the 
onelamp. The need for justification came upon him very 
swiftly. ‘I am trapped,’ he said, ‘but the offence was 
that man’s. He cast an evil eye upon my child, and I 


324 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


killed and hid him. Only such as are served by devils,’ 
he glared at Tietjens, couched stolidly before him, ‘only 
such could know what I did.’ 

‘It was clever. But thou shouldst have lashed him 
to the beam with a rope. Now, thou thyself wilt hang 
by arope. Orderly!’ 

A drowsy policeman answered Strickland’s call. He 
was followed by another, and Tietjens sat wondrous still. 

‘Take him to the police-station,’ said Strickland. 
‘There is a case toward.’ 

‘Do I hang, then?’ said Bahadur Khan, making no 
attempt to escape, and keeping his eyes on the ground. 

‘If the sun shines or the water runs—yes!’ said 
Strickland. 

Bahadur Khan stepped back one long pace, quivered, 
and stood still. The two policemen waited further 
orders. 

‘Go!’ said Strickland. 

‘Nay; but I go very swiftly,’ said Bahadur Khan. 
‘Look! Jam even now a dead man.’ 

He lifted his foot, and to the little toe there clung the 
head of the half-killed snake, firm fixed in the agony of 
death. 

‘I come of land-holding stock,’ said Bahadur Khan, 
rocking where he stood. ‘It were a disgrace to me to 
go to the public scaffold: therefore I take this way. Be 
it remembered that the Sahib’s shirts are correctly enu- 
merated, and that there is an extra piece of soap in his 
washbasin. My child was bewitched, and I slew the 
wizard. Why should you seek to slay me with the rope? 
My honour is saved, and—and—I die.’ 

At the end of an hour he died, as they die who are 
bitten by the little brown karazt, and the policemen bore 
him and the thing under the tablecloth to their appointed 


THE RETURN OF IMRAY 325 


places. All were needed to make clear the disappear- 
ance of Imray. 

‘This,’ said Strickland, very calmly, as he climbed 
into bed, ‘is called the nineteenth century. Did you 
hear what that man said?’ 

‘I heard,’ I answered. ‘Imray made a mistake.’ 

‘Simply and solely through not knowing the nature 
of the Oriental, and the coincidence of a little seasonal 
fever. Bahadur Khan had been with him for four years.’ 

I shuddered. My own servant had been with me for 
exactly that length of time. When I went over to my 
own room I found my man waiting, impassive as the 
copper head on a penny, to pull off my boots. 

‘What has befallen Bahadur Khan?’ said I. 

‘He was bitten by a snake and died. The rest the 
Sahib knows,’ was the answer. 

‘And how much of this matter hast thou known?’ 

‘As much as might be gathered from One coming in 
in the twilight to seek satisfaction. Gently, Sahib. Let 
me pull off those boots.’ 

I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion when I 
heard Strickland shouting from his side of the house— 

‘Tietjens has come back to her place!’ 

And so she had. The great deerhound was couched 
statelily on her own bedstead on her own blanket, while, 
in the next room, the idle, empty, ceiling-cloth waggled 
as it trailed on the table. 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, 
The dew on his wet robe hung heavy and chill; 
Ere the steamer that brought him had passed out of hearin’, 


He was Alderman Mike inthrojuicin’ a bill! 
‘American Song. 


ONCE upon a time there was a King who lived on the 
road to Thibet, very many miles in the Himalayas. His 
Kingdom was eleven thousand feet above the sea and 
exactly four miles square; but most of the miles stood 
on end owing to the nature of the country. His revenues 
were rather less than four hundred pounds yearly, and 
they were expended in the maintenance of one elephant 
and a standing army of five men. He was tributary to 
the Indian Government, who allowed him certain sums 
for keeping a section of the Himalaya-Thibet road in 
repair. He further increased his revenues by selling 
timber to the railway-companies; for he would cut the 
great deodar trees in his one forest, and they fell thunder- 
ing into the Sutlej river and were swept down to the 
plains three hundred miles away and became railway-ties. 
Now and again this King, whose name does not matter, 
would mount a ringstraked horse and ride scores of miles 
to Simla-town to confer with the Lieutenant-Governor on 
matters of state, or to assure the Viceroy that his sword 
was at the service of the Queen-Empress. Then the 
Viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded, and 
the ringstraked horse and the cavalry of the State—two 
men in tatters—and the herald who bore the silver stick 


326 


NAMGAY DOOLA 327 


before the King would trot back to their own place, which 
lay between the tail of a heaven-climbing glacier and a 
dark birch-forest. 

Now, from such a King, always remembering that he 
possessed one veritable elephant, and could count his 
descent for twelve hundred years, I expected, when it was 
my fate to wander through his dominions, no more than 
mere license to live. 

The night had closed in rain, and rolling clouds 
blotted out the lights of the villages in the valley. Forty 
miles away, untouched by cloud or storm, the white 
shoulder of Donga Pa— the Mountain of the Council of 
the Gods—upheld the Evening Star. The monkeys sang 
sorrowfully to each other as they hunted for dry roosts 
in the fern-wreathed trees, and the last puff of the day- 
wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp 
wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rot- 
ting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Hima- 
layas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that 
man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills 
to die. The clouds closed and the smell went away, and 
there remained nothing in all the world except chilling 
white mist and the boom of the Sutlej river racing through 
the valley below. A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want 
to die, bleated piteously at my tent door. He was 
scuffing with the Prime Minister and the Director- 
General of Public Education, and he was a royal gift to 
me and my camp servants. I expressed my thanks suit- 
ably, and asked if I might have audience of the King. 
The Prime Minister readjusted his turban, which had 
fallen off in the struggle, and assured me that the King 
would be very pleased toseeme. Therefore I despatched 
two bottles as a foretaste, and when the sheep had entered 
upon another incarnation went to the King’s Palace 


328 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


through the wet. He had sent his army to escort me, 
but the army stayed to talk with my cook. Soldiers are 
very much alike all the world over. 

The Palace was a four-roomed and whitewashed mud 
and timber house, the finest in all the hills for a day’s 
journey. The King was dressed in a purple velvet jacket, 
white muslin trousers, and a saffron-yellow turban of 
price. He gave me audience in a little carpeted room 
opening off the palace courtyard which was occupied by 
the Elephant of State. The great beast was sheeted and 
anchored from trunk to tail, and the curve of his back 
stood out grandly against the mist. 

The Prime Minister and the Director-General of Public 
Education were present to introduce me, but all the 
court had been dismissed, lest the two bottles aforesaid 
should corrupt their morals. The King cast a wreath of 
heavy-scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and 
inquired how my honoured presence had the felicity to 
be. I said that through seeing his auspicious counte- 
nance the mists of the night had turned into sunshine, 
and that by reason of his beneficent sheep his good 
deeds would be remembered by the Gods. He said that 
since I had set my magnificent foot in his Kingdom the 
crops would probably yield seventy per cent more than 
the average. I said that the fame of the King had 
reached to the four corners of the earth, and that the 
nations gnashed their teeth when they heard daily of the 
glories of his realm and the wisdom of his moon-like 
Prime Minister and lotus-like Director-General of Public 
Education. 

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was 
at the King’s right hand. Three minutes later he was 
telling me that the state of the maize crop was something 
disgraceful, and that the railway-companies would not 


NAMGAY DOOLA 329 


pay him enough for his timber. The talk shifted to and 
fro with the bottles, and we discussed very many stately 
things, and the King became confidential on the subject 
of Government generally. Most of all he dwelt on the 
shortcomings of one of his subjects, who, from all I could 
gather, had been paralyzing the executive. 

‘In the old days,’ said the King, ‘I could have ordered 
the Elephant yonder to trample him to death. Now I 
must e’en send him seventy miles across the hills to be 
tried, and his keep would be upon the State. The 
Elephant eats everything.’ 

‘What be the man’s crimes, Rajah Sahib?’ said I. 

‘Firstly, he is an outlander and no man of mine own 
people. Secondly, since of my favour I gave him land 
upon his first coming, he refuses to pay revenue. Am I 
not the lord of the earth, above and below, entitled by 
right and custom to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this 
devil, establishing himself, refuses to pay a single tax; and 
he brings a poisonous spawn of babes.’ 

‘Cast him into jail,’ I said. 

‘Sahib,’ the King answered, shifting a little on the 
cushions, ‘once and only once in these forty years sick- 
ness came upon me so that I was not able to go abroad. 
in that hour I made a vow to my God that I would never 
again cut man or woman from the light of the sun and 
the air of God; for I perceived the nature of the punish- 
ment. How can I break my vow? Were it only the 
lopping of a hand or a foot I should not delay. But even 
that is impossible now that the English have rule. One 
or another of my people’—he looked obliquely at the 
Director-General of Public Education—‘would at once 
write a letter to the Viceroy, and perhaps I should be 
deprived of my ruffle of drums.’ 

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water- 


330 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


pipe, fitted a plain amber mouthpiece, and passed his 
pipe to me. ‘Not content with refusing revenue,’ he 
continued, ‘this outlander refuses also the begar’ (this 
was the corvée or forced labour on the roads) ‘and stirs 
my people up to the like treason. Yet he is, when he 
wills, an expert log-snatcher. There is none better or 
bolder among my people to clear a block of the river when 
the logs stick fast.’ 

‘But he worships strange Gods,’ said the Prime Minis- 
ter deferentially. 

‘For that I have no concern,’ said the King, who was 
as tolerant as Akbar in matters of belief. ‘To each man 
his own God and the fire or Mother Earth for us all at 
last. It is the rebellion that offends me.’ 

‘The King has an army,’ I suggested. ‘Has not the 
King burned the man’s house and left him naked to the 
night dews?’ 

‘Nay, a hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man. 
But once, I sent my army against him when his excuses 
became wearisome: of their heads he brake three across 
the top with a stick. The other two men ran away. 
Also the guns would not shoot.’ 

I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One-third 
of it was an old muzzle-loading fowling-piece, with a 
ragged rust-hole where the nipples should have been, one- 
third a wire-bound matchlock with a worm-eaten stock, 
and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun without a flint. 

‘But it is to be remembered,’ said the King, reaching 
out for the bottle, ‘that he is a very expert log-snatcher 
and a man of a merry face. What shall I do to him, 
Sahib?’ 

This was interesting. The timid hill-folk would as 
soon have refused taxes to their king as revenues to their 
Gods. 


NAMGAY DOOLA 497 


‘If it be the King’s permission,’ I said, ‘I will not 
strike my tents till the third day and I will see this man. 
The mercy of the King is God-like, and rebellion is like 
unto the sin of witchcraft. Moreover, both the bottles 
and another be empty.’ 

‘You have my leave to go,’ said the King. 

Next morning a crier went through the state pro- 
claiming that there was a log-jam on the river and that 
it behoved all loyal subjects to remove it. The people 
poured down from their villages to the moist warm valley 
of poppy-fields; and the King and I went with them. 
Hundreds of dressed deodar-logs had caught on a snag 
of rock, and the river was bringing down more logs every 
minute to complete the blockade. The water snarled 
and wrenched and worried at the timber, and the popu- 
lation of the state began prodding the nearest logs with a 
pole in the hope of starting a general movement. Then 
there went up a shout of ‘Namgay Doola! Namgay 
Doola!’ and a large red-haired villager hurried up, 
stripping off his clothes as he ran. 

‘That is he. That is the rebel,’ said the King. ‘Now 
will the dam be cleared.’ 

‘But why has he red hair?’ I asked, since red hair 
among hill-folks is as common as blue or green. 

‘He is an outlander,’ said the King. ‘Well done! Oh 
well done!’ 

Namgay Doola had scrambled out on the jam and was 
clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat- 
hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, 
three or four others followed it, and the green water 
spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the vil- 
lagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, 
pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the 
red head of Namgay Doola was chief among them all, 


332 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


The logs swayed and chafed and groaned as fresh con- 
signments from upstream battered the now weakening 
dam. All gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing 
logs, bobbing black heads and confusion indescribable. 
The river tossed everything before it. I saw the red 
head go down with the last remnants of the jam and 
disappear between the great grinding tree-trunks. It 
rose close to the bank and blowing like a grampus. 
Namgay Doola wrung the water out of his eyes and 
made obeisance to the King. I had time to observe 
him closely. The virulent redness of his shock head 
and beard was most startling; and in the thicket of 
hair wrinkled above high cheek bones shone two very 
merry blue eyes. He was indeed an outlander, but yet 
a Thibetan in language, habit, and attire. He spoke the 
Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the 
gutturals. It was not so much a lisp as an accent. 

“Whence comest thou?’ I asked. 

‘From Thibet.’ He pointed across the hills and 
grinned. That grin went straight to my heart. Mechani- 
cally I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it. 
No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning 
of the gesture. He went away to look for his clothes, and 
as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell 
that seemed unaccountably familiar. It was the whoop- 
ing of Namgay Doola. 

“You see now,’ said the King, ‘why I would not kill 
him. He is a bold man among my logs, but,’ and he 
shook his head like a schoolmaster, ‘I know that before 
long there will be complaints of him in the court. Let 
us return to the Palace and do justice.’ It was that 
King’s custom to judge his subjects every day between 
eleven and three o’clock. I saw him decide equitably in 
weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a little wife- 


NAMGAY DOOLA 333 


stealing. Then his brow clouded and he summoned 
me. 

‘Again it is Namgay Doola,’ he said despairingly. 
‘Not content with refusing revenue on his own part, he 
has bound half his village by an oath to the like treason. 
Never before has such a thing befallen me! Nor are my 
taxes heavy.’ 

A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind 
his ear, advanced trembling. He had been in the con- 
spiracy, but had told everything and hoped for the King’s 
favour. 

‘O King,’ said I, ‘if it be the King’s will let this 
matter stand over till the morning. Only the Godscan do 
right swiftly, and it may be that yonder villager has lied.’ 

‘Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay Doola; but 
since a guest asks let the matter remain. Wilt thou 
speak harshly to this red-headed outlander? He may 
listen to thee.’ 

I made an attempt that very evening, but for the life 
of me I could not keep my countenance. Namgay 
Doola grinned persuasively, and began to tell me about a 
big brown bear in a poppy-field by the river. Would I 
care to shoot it? I spoke austerely on the sin of con- 
spiracy, and the certainty of punishment. Namgay 
Doola’s face clouded for a moment. Shortly afterwards 
he withdrew from my tent, and I heard him singing to 
himself softly among the pines. The words were unin- 
telligible to me, but the tune, like his liquid insinuating 
speech, seemed the ghost of something strangely familiar. 


‘Dir hané mard-i-yemen dir 
To weeree ala gee.’ 


sang Namgay Doola again and again, and I racked my 
brain for that lost tune. It was not till after dinner 


334 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


that I discovered some one had cut a square foot of 
velvet from the centre of my best camera-cloth. This 
made me so angry that I wandered down the valley in 
the hope of meeting the big brown bear. I could hear 
him grunting like a discontented pig in the poppy-field, 
and I waited shoulder deep in the dew-dripping Indian 
corn to catch him after his meal. The moon was at full 
and drew out the rich scent of the tasselled crop. Then I 
heard the anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow, one of 
the little black crummies no bigger than Newfoundland 
dogs. ‘Two shadows that looked like a bear and her cub 
hurried past me. I was in act to fire when I saw that 
they had each a brilliant red head. The lesser animal 
was trailing some rope behind it that left a dark track on 
the path. They passed within six feet of me, and the 
shadow of the moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces. 
Velvet-black was exactly the word, for by all the powers 
of moonlight they were masked in the velvet of my 
camera-cloth! Imarvelled and went to bed. 

Next morning the Kingdom was in uproar. Namgay 
Doola, men said, had gone forth in the night and with a 
sharp knife had cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the 
rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. It was 
sacrilege unspeakable against the Holy Cow. The State 
desired his blood, but he had retreated into his hut, bar- 
ricaded the doors and windows with big stones, and defied 
the world. 

The King and I and the populace approached the hut 
cautiously. There was no hope of capturing the man 
without loss of life, for from a hole in the wall projected 
the muzzle of an extremely well-cared-for gun—the only 
gun in the State that could shoot. Namgay Doola had 
narrowly missed a villager just before we came up. The 
Standing Army stood. It could do no more, for when it 


NAMGAY DOOLA 335 


advanced pieces of sharp shale flew from the windows. 
To these were added from time to time showers of scald- 
ing water. We saw red heads bobbing up and down 
in the hut. The family of Namgay Doola were aiding 
their sire, and blood-curdling yells of defiance were the 
only answers to our prayers. 

‘Never,’ said the King, puffing, ‘has such a thing 
befallen my State. Next year I will certainly. buy a 
little cannon.’ He looked at me imploringly. 

‘Is there any priest in the Kingdom to whom he will 
listen?’ said I, for a light was beginning to break upon me. 

‘He worships his own God,’ said the Prime Minister. 
“We can starve him out.’ 

‘Let the white man approach,’ said Namgay Doola 
from within. ‘All others I will kill. Send me the 
white man.’ 

The door was thrown open and I entered the smoky 
interior of a Thibetan hut crammed with children. And 
every child had flaming red hair. A raw cow’s-tail lay 
on the floor, and by its side two pieces of black velvet— 
my black velvet—rudely hacked into the semblance of 
masks. 

‘And what is this shame, Namgay Doola?’ said I. 

He grinned more winningly than ever. ‘There is no 
shame,’ said he. ‘I did but cut off the tail of that man’s 
cow. He betrayed me. I was minded to shoot him, 
Sahib. But not to death. Indeed not to death. Only 
in the legs.’ 

‘And why at all, since it is the custom to pay revenue 
to the King? Why at all?’ 

‘By the God of my father I cannot tell,’ said Namgay 
Doola. 

‘And who was thy father?’ 

“The same that had this gun.’ He showed me his 


336 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


weapon—a Tower musket bearing date 1832 and the 
stamp of the Honourable East India Company. 

‘And thy father’s name?’ said I. 

‘Timlay Doola,’ said he. ‘At the first, I being then 
a little child, it is in my mind that he wore a red coat.’ 

‘Of that I have no doubt. But repeat the name of 
thy father thrice or four times.’ 

He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling 
accent in his speech came. ‘Thimla Dhula,’ said he 
excitedly. ‘To this hour I worship his God.’ 

‘May I see that God?’ 

‘In a little while—at twilight time.’ 

“Rememberest thou aught of thy father’s speech?’ 

‘It is long ago. But there is one word which he said 
often. Thus “Shun.” Then I and my brethren stood 
upon our feet, our hands to our sides. Thus.’ 

‘Even so. And what was thy mother?’ 

‘A woman ofthehills. Webe Lepchas of Darjeeling, but 
me they call an outlander because my hair is as thou seest.’ 

The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on the 
arm gently. The long parley outside the fort had lasted 
far into the day. It was now close upon twilight—the 
hour of the Angelus. Very solemnly, the red-headed 
brats rose from the floor and formed a semicircle. Nam- 
gay Doola laid his gun against the wali, lighted a little 
oil lamp, and set it before a recess in the wall. Pulling 
aside a curtain of dirty cloth, he revealed a worn brass 
crucifix leaning against the helmet-badge of a long for- 
gotten East India regiment. ‘Thus did my father,’ he 
said, crossing himself clumsily. The wife and children 
followed suit. Then all together they struck up the wail- 
ing chant that I heard on the hillside— 


Dir hané mard-i-yemen dir 
To weeree ala gee. 


NAMGAY DOOLA 337 


I was puzzled no longer. Again and again they crooned, 
as if their hearts would break, their version of the chorus 
of the Wearing of the Green— 


They’re hanging men and women too, 
For the wearing of the green. 


A diabolical inspiration came tome. One of the brats, a 
boy about eight years old, was watching me as he sang. 
I pulled out a rupee, held the coin between finger and 
thumb and looked—only looked—at the gun against the 
wall. A grin of brilliant and perfect comprehension 
overspread the face of the child. Never for an instant 
stopping the song, he held out his hand for the money, 
and then slid the gun to my hand. I might have shot 
Namgay Doola ashe chanted. ButIwassatisfied. The 
blood-instinct of the race held true. Namgay Doola 
drew the curtain across the recess. Angelus was over. 

‘Thus my father sang. There was much more, but I 
have forgotten, and I do not know the purport of these 
words, but it may be that the God will understand. I 
am not of this people, and I will not pay revenue.’ 

‘And why?’ 

Again that soul-compelling grin. ‘What occupation 
would be to me between crop and crop? It is better 
than scaring bears. But these people do not understand.’ 
He picked the masks from the floor, and looked in my 
face as simply as a child. 

‘By what road didst thou attain knowledge to make 
these devilries?’ I said, pointing. 

‘I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjeeling, and 
yet the stuff——’ 

“Which thou hast stolen.’ 

‘Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it so. The 


338 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


stuff—the stuff—what else should I have done with the 
stuff?’ He twisted the velvet between his fingers. 

‘But the sin of maiming the cow—consider that.’ 

‘That is true; but oh, Sahib, that man betrayed me 
and I had no thought—but the heifer’s tail waved in the 
moonlight and I had my knife. What else should I have 
done? ‘The tail came off ere [ was aware. Sahib, thou 
knowest more than I.’ 

‘That is true,’ said I. -Stay within the door. I go 
to speak to the King.’ 

The population of the Seate were ranged on the hill- 
sides. I went forth and spoke to the King. 

‘O King,’ said I. ‘Touching this man there be two 
courses open to thy wisdom. ‘Thou canst either hang 
him from a tree, he and his brood, till there remains no 
hair that is red within the laad.’ 

‘Nay,’ said the King. ‘Why should I hurt the little 
children?’ 

They had poured out of the hut door and were mak- 
ing plump obeisance to everybody. Namgay Doola 
waited with his gun across his arm. 

‘Or thou canst, discarding the impiety of the cow- 
maiming, raise him to honour in thy Army. He comes of 
a race that will not pay reveaue. A red flame is in his 
blood which comes out at the top of his head in that 
glowing hair. Make him chief of the Army. Give him 
honour as may befall, and full allowance of work, but 
look to it, O King, that neither he nor his hold a foot 
of earth from thee henceforward. Feed him with words 
and favour, and also liquor from ¢ertain bottles that thou 
knowest of, and he will be a bulwark of defence. But 
deny him even a tuft of grass for his own. This is the 
nature that God has given him, Moreover he has 
brethren ———— 


NAMGAY DOOLA 3390 


The State groaned unanimously. 

‘But if his brethren come, they will surely fight with 
each other till they die; or else the one will always 
give information concerning the other. Shall he be of 
thy Army, O King? Choose.’ 

The King bowed his head, and I said, ‘Come forth, 
Namgay Doola, and command the King’s Army. Thy 
name shall no more be Namgay in the mouths of men, 
but Patsay Doola, for as thou hast said, I know.’ 

Then Namgay Doola, new christened Patsay Doola, 
son of Timlay Doola, which is Tim Doolan gone very 
wrong indeed, clasped the King’s feet, cuffed the Stand- 
ing Army, and hurried in an agony of contrition from 
temple to temple, making offerings for the sin of cattle- 
maiming. 

And the King was so pleased with my perspicacity, 
that he offered to sell me a village for twenty pounds 
sterling. But I buy no villages in the Himalayas so 
long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven- 
climbing glacier and the dark birch-forest. 

I know that breed. 


BERTRAN AND BIMI 


THE orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to the 
sheep-pen began the discussion. The night was stiflingly 
hot, and as I and Hans Breitmann, the big-beamed Ger- 
man, passed him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak 
of the steamer, he roused himself and chattered obscenely. 
He had been caught somewhere in the Malayan Archi- 
pelago, and was going to England to be exhibited at a 
shilling a head. For four days he had struggled, yelled, 
and wrenched at the heavy bars of his prison without 
ceasing, and had nearly slain a lascar, incautious enough 
to come within reach of the great hairy paw. 

‘It would be well for you, mine friend, if you was a 
liddle seasick,’ said Hans Breitmann, pausing by the 
cage. ‘You haf too much Ego in your Cosmos.’ 

The orang-outang’s arm slid out negligently from 
between the bars. No one would have believed that it 
would make a sudden snakelike rush at the German’s 
breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit tore out; 
Hans stepped back unconcernedly to pluck a banana 
from a bunch hanging close to one of the boats. 

“Too much Ego,’ said he, peeling the fruit and offering 
it to the caged devil, who was rending the silk to tatters. 

Then we laid out our bedding in the bows among the 
sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze that the pace of the 
ship might give us. The sea was like smoky oil, except 
where it turned to fire under our forefoot and whirled 
back into the dark in smears of dull flame. There was 


340 


BERTRAN AND BIMI 34% 


a thunderstorm some miles away; we could see the 
glimmer of the lightning. The ship’s cow, distressed by 
the heat and the smell of the ape-beast in the cage, lowed 
unhappily from time to time in exactly the same key as 
that in which the look-out man answered the hourly call 
from the bridge. The trampling tune of the engines was 
very distinct, and the jarring of the ash-lift, as it was 
tipped into the sea, hurt the procession of hushed noise. 
Hans lay down by my side and lighted a good-night 
cigar. This was naturally the beginning of conversation. 
He owned a voice as soothing as the wash of the sea, 
and stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself; for 
his business in life was to wander up and down the 
world, collecting orchids and wild beasts and ethnological 
specimens for German and American dealers. I watched 
the glowing end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom, 
as the sentences rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep. 
The orang-outang, troubled by some dream of the forests 
of his freedom, began to yell like a soul in purgatory, 
and to pluck madly at the bars of the cage. 

‘If he was out now dere would not be much of us 
left hereabout,’ said Hans lazily. ‘He screams goot. 
See, now, how I shall tame him when he stops himself.’ 

There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans’ 
mouth came an imitation of a snake’s hiss, so perfect that 
I almost sprang to my feet. The sustained murderous 
sound ran along the deck, and the wrenching at the bars 
ceased. The orang-outang was quaking in an ecstasy of 
pure terror. 

‘Dot stopped him,’ said Hans. ‘I learned dot trick 
in Mogoung Tanjong when I was collecting liddle 
monkeys for some peoples in Berlin. Efery one in der 
world is afraid of der monkeys—except der snake. Se 
I blay snake against monkey, and he keep quite still. 


342 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


Dere was too much Ego in his Cosmos. Dot is der soul- 
custom of monkeys. Are you asleep, or will you listen, 
and I will tell a dale dot you shall not pelief?’ 

‘There’s no tale in the wide world that I can’t believe,’ 
I said. 

‘If you haf learned pelief you haf learned somedings. 
Now I shall try your pelief. Goot! When I was 
collecting dose liddle monkeys—it was in ’79 or ’80, und 
I was in der islands of der Archipelago—over dere in der 
dark’—he pointed southward to New Guinea generally 
—‘Mein Gott! I would sooner collect life red devils 
than liddle monkeys. When dey do not bite off your 
thumbs dey are always dying from nostalgia—home- 
sick—for dey haf der imperfect soul, which is mid- 
way arrested in defelopment—und too much Ego. I 
was dere for nearly a year, und dere I found a man dot 
was called Bertran. He was a Frenchman, und he was 
goot man—naturalist to his bone. Dey said he was 
an escaped convict, but he was naturalist, und dot was 
enough for me. He would call all der life beasts from 
der forest, und dey would come. I said he was St. 
Francis of Assizi in a new dransmigration produced, und 
he laughed und said he haf never preach to der fishes. 
He sold dem for tripang—béche-de-mer. 

‘Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer men, he 
had in der house shust such anoder as dot devil-animal 
in der cage—a great orang-outang dot thought he was a 
man. He haf found him when he was a child—der 
orang-outang—und he was child und brother und opera 
comique all round to Betran. He had his room in dot 
house—not a cage, but a room—mit a bed und sheets, 
und he would go to bed und get up in der morning und 
smoke his cigar und eat his dinner mit Bertran, und walk 
mit him hand in hand, which was most horrible. Herr 


BERTRAN AND BIMI 348: 


Gott! I haf seen dot beast throw himself back in his. 
chair und laugh when Bertran haf made fun of me. He 
was not a beast; he was a man, und he talked to Bertran, 
und Bertran comprehend, for I have seen dem. Und he 
was always politeful to me except when I talk too long 
to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den he would 
pull me away—dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous 
paws—shust as if I was a child. He was not a beast; 
he was a man. Dis I saw pefore I know him three 
months, und Bertran he haf saw the same; and Bimi, 
der orang-outang, haf understood us both, mit his cigar 
between his big dog-teeth und der blue gum. 

‘I was dere a year, dere und at dere oder islands— 
somedimes for monkeys und somedimes for butterflies und 
orchits. One time Bertran says to me dot he will be 
married, because he haf found a girl dot was goot, und he 
enquire if this marrying idee was right. I would not 
say, pecause it was not me dot was going to be married. 
Den he go off courting der girl—she was a half-caste 
French girl—very pretty. Haf you got a new light for 
my cigar? Ouf! Very pretty. Only I say, “Haf you 
thought of Bimi? If he pull me away when I talk to 
you, what will he do to your wife? He will pull her in 
pieces. If I was you, Bertran, I would gif my wife for 
wedding-present der stuff figure of Bimi.”” By dot time 
I had learned some dings about der monkey peoples. 
“Shoot him?” says Bertran. ‘He is your beast,” I said; 
“if he was mine he would be shot now!”’ 

‘Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of 
Bimi. Mein Gott! I tell you dot he talked through 
dose fingers. It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet all 
gomplete. He slide his hairy arm round my neck, und 
he tilt up my chin und looked into my face, shust to see 
if I understood his talk so well as he understood mine. 


344 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘See now dere!” says Bertran, “und you would 
shoot him while he is cuddlin’ you? Dot is der Teuton 
ingrate!”’ 

‘But I knew dot I had made Bimi a life’s-enenry, 
pecause his fingers haf talk murder through the back of 
my neck. Next dime I see Bimi dere was a pistol in 
my belt, und he touched it once, und I open der breech to 
show him it was loaded. He haf seen der liddle monkeys 
killed in der woods: he understood. 

‘So Bertran he was married, and he forgot clean about 
Bimi dot was skippin’ alone on der beach mit der half of 
a human soul in his belly. I was see him skip, und he 
took a big bough und thrash der sand till he haf made a 
great hole like a grave. So I says to Bertran, ‘‘For any 
sakes, kill Bimi. He is mad mit der jealousy.” 

‘Bertran haf said “‘He is not mad at all. He haf obey 
und lofe my wife, und if she speak he will get her slippers,” 
und he looked at his wife agross der room. She was a 
very pretty girl. 

‘Den I said to him, ‘‘Dost dou pretend to know 
monkeys und dis beast dot is lashing himself mad upon 
der sands, pecause you do not talk to him? Shoot him 
when he comes to der house, for he haf der light in his 
eye dot means killing—und killing.”” Bimi come to der 
house, but dere was no light in his eye. It was all put 
away, cunning—so cunning—und he fetch der girl her 
slippers, und Bertran turn to me und say, “Dost dou 
know him in nine months more dan I haf known him in 
twelve years? Shall a child stab his fader? I haf 
fed him, und he was my child. Do not speak this 
nonsense to my wife or to me any more.” 

‘Dot next day Bertran came to my house to help me 
make some wood cases for der specimens, und he tell me 
dot he haf left his wife a liddle while mit Bimi in der 


BERTRAN AND BIMI 345 


garden. Den I finish my cases quick, und I say, ‘‘Let us 
go to your houses und get a trink.”” He laugh and say, 
““Come along, dry mans.” 

‘His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi did not 
come when Bertran called. Und his wife did not come 
when he called, und he knocked at her bedroom door und 
dot was shut tight—locked. Den he look at me, und his 
face was white. I broke down der door mit my shoulder, 
und der thatch of der roof was torn into a great hole, 
und der sun came in upon der floor. Haf you ever seen 
paper in der waste-basket, or cards at whist on der table 
scattered? Dere was no wife dot could be seen. I tell 
you dere was nodings in dot room dot might be a woman. 
Dere was stuff on der floor und dot was all. I looked at 
dese things und I was very sick; but Bertran looked a 
liddle longer at what was upon the floor und der walls, 
und der hole in der thatch. Den he pegan to laugh, soft 
und low, und I knew und thank Gott dot he was mad. 
He nefer cried, he nefer prayed. He stood all still in 
der doorway und laugh to himself. Den he said, ‘“‘She 
haf locked herself in dis room, and he haf torn up der 
thatch. Fi donc! Dotisso. We will mend der thatch 
und wait for Bimi. He will surely come.” 

‘IT tell you we waited ten days in dot house, after der 
room was made into a room again, und once or twice we 
saw Bimi comin’ a liddle way from der woods. He was 
afraid pecause he haf done wrong. Bertran called him 
when he was come to look on the tenth day, und Bimi 
come skipping along der beach und making noises, mit a 
long piece of black hair in his hands. Den Bertran laugh 
and say, “Fz donc!’ shust as if it was a glass broken 
upon der table; und Bimi come nearer, und Bertran was 
honey-sweet in his voice und laughed to himself. For 
three days he made love to Bimi, pecause Bimi would not 


340 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


let himself be touched. Den Bimi come to dinner at 
der same table mit us, und the hair on his hands was all 
black und thick mit—mit what had dried on der hands. 
Bertran gave him sangaree till Bimi was drunk and 
stupid, und den 

Hans paused to puff at his cigar. 

‘And then?’ said I. 

‘Und den Bertran he kill him mit his hands, und I 
go for a walk upon der beach. It was Bertran’s own 
piziness. When I come back der ape he was dead, und 
Bertran he was dying abofe him; but still he laughed 
liddle und low und he was quite content. Now you 
know der formula of der strength of der orang-outang— 
it is more as seven to one in relation to man. But 
Bertran, he haf killed Bimi mit sooch dings as Gott gif 
him. Dot was der miracle.’ 

The infernal clamour in the cage recommenced. ‘Aha! 
Dot friend of ours haf still too much Ego in his Cosmos. 
Be quiet, dou!’ 

Hans hissed long and venomously. We could hear 
the great beast quaking in his cage. 

‘But why in the world didn’t you help Bertran instead 
of letting him be killed?’ I asked. 

‘My friend,’ said Hans, composedly stretching himself 
to slumber, ‘it was not nice even to mineself dot I should 
live after I haf seen dot room mit der hole in der thatch. 
Und Bertran, he was her husband. Goot-night, und— 
sleep well.’ 





MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER 


ONCE upon a time there was a coffee-planter in India 
who wished to clear some forest land for coffee-planting. 
When he had cut down all the trees and burned the 
under-wood the stumps still remained. Dynamite is 
expensive and slow-fire slow. The happy medium for 
stump-clearing is the lord of all beats, who is the elephant. 
He will either push the stump out of the ground with 
his tusks, if he has any, or drag it out with ropes. The 
planter, therefore, hired elephants by ones and twos 
and threes, and fell to work. The very best of all the 
elephants belonged to the very worst of all the drivers or 
mahouts; and the superior beast’s name was Moti Guj. 
He was the absolute property of his mahout, which would 
never have been the case under native rule, for Moti Guj 
was a creature to be desired by kings; and his name, 
being translated, meant the Pearl Elephant. Because the 
British Government was in the land, Deesa, the mahout, 
enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. 
When he had made much money through the strength of 
his elephant, he would get extremely drunk and give 
Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over the tender nails 
of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the life out of 
Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that after the 
beating was over Deesa would embrace his trunk and 
weep and call him his love and his life and the liver of 
his soul, and give him some liquor. Moti Guj was very 
fond of liquor—arrack for choice, though he would drink 


347 


348 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


palm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. Then Deesa 
would go to sleep between Moti Guj’s forefeet, and as 
Deesa generally chose the middle of the public road, and 
as Moti Guj mounted guard over him and would not 
permit horse, foot, or cart to pass by, traffic was congested 
till Deesa saw fit to wake up. 

There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter’s 
clearing: the wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on 
Moti Guj’s neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj 
rooted up the stumps—for he owned a magnificent pair 
of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope—for he had a 
magnificent pair of shoulders, while Deesa kicked him 
behind the ears and said he was the king of elephants. 
At evening time Moti Guj would wash down his three 
hundred pounds’ weight of green food with a quart of 
arrack, and Deesa would take a share and sing songs 
between Moti Guj’s legs till it was time to go to bed. 
Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and 
Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows, 
while Deesa went over him with a coir-swab and a brick. 
Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the latter 
for the smack of the former that warned him to get up 
and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would 
look at his feet, and examine his eyes, and turn up the 
fringes of his mighty ears in case of sores or budding 
ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would ‘come 
up with a song from the sea,’ Moti Guj all black and 
shining, waving a torn tree branch twelve feet long in 
his trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long wet 
hair. 

It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the 
return of the desire to drink deep. He wished for an 
orgie. The little draughts that led nowhere were taking 
the manhood out of him. 


MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER 349 


He went to the planter, and ‘My mother’s dead,’ said 
he, weeping. 

‘She died on the last plantation two months ago; and 
she died once before that when you were working for me 
last year,’ said the planter, who knew something of the 
ways of nativedom. 

‘Then it’s my aunt, and she was just the same as a 
mother to me,’ said Deesa, weeping more than ever. 
‘She has left eighteen small children entirely without 
bread, and it is I who must fill their little stomachs,’ said 
Deesa, beating his head on the floor. 

‘Who brought you the news?’ said the planter. 

‘The post,’ said Deesa. 

“There hasn’t been a post here for the past week. 
Get back to your lines!’ 

‘A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all 
my wives are dying,’ yelled Deesa, really in tears this time. 

‘Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa’s village,’ said 
the planter. ‘Chihun, has this man a wife?’ 

‘He!’ said Chihun. ‘No. Not a woman of our 
village would look at him. They’d sooner marry the 
elephant.’ Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed. 

‘You will get into a difficulty in a minute,’ said the 
planter. ‘Go back to your work!’ 

‘Now I will speak Heaven’s truth,’ gulped Deesa, 
with an inspiration. ‘I haven’t been drunk for two 
months. I desire to depart in order to get properly 
drunk afar off and distant from this heavenly plantation. 
Thus I shall cause no trouble.’ 

A flickering smile crossed the planter’s face. ‘Deesa,’ 
said he, ‘you’ve spoken the truth, and I’d give you leave 
on the spot if anything could be done with Moti Guj 
while you’re away. You know that he will only obey 
your orders.’ 


350 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


‘May the Light of the Heavens live forty thousand 
years. I shall be absent but ten little days. After that, 
upon my faith and honour and soul, I return. As to the 
inconsiderable interval, have I the gracious permission of 
the Heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?’ 

Permission was granted, and, in answer to Deesa’s 
shrill yell, the lordly tusker swung out of the shade of 
a clump of trees where he had been squirting dust over 
himself till his master should return. 

‘Light of my heart, Protector of the Drunken, Mountain 
of Might, give ear,’ said Deesa, standing in front of him. 

Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. ‘I 
am going away,’ said Deesa. 

Moti Guj’s eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well 
as his master. One could snatch all manner of nice 
things from the roadside then. 

‘But you, you fubsy old pig, must stay behind and 
work.’ 

The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look de- 
lighted. He hated stump-hauling on the plantation. 
It hurt his teeth. 

‘T shall be gone for ten days, O Delectable One. Hold 
up your near forefoot and I’ll impress the fact upon it, 
warty toad of a dried mud-puddle.’ Deesa took a tent- 
peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on the nails. Moti 
Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot. 

‘Ten days,’ said Deesa, ‘you must work and haul and 
root trees as Chihun here shall order you. Take up 
Chihun and set him on your neck!’ Moti Guj curled 
the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there and was 
swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy 
ankus, the iron elephant-goad. 

Chihun thumped Moti Guj’s bald head as a paviour 
thumps a kerbstone. 


MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER 351 


Moti Guj trumpeted. 

‘Be still, hog of the backwoods. Chihun’s your 
mahout for ten days. And now bid me good-bye, beast 
after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my king! Jewel of 
all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your 
honoured health; be virtuous. Adieu!’ 

Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung 
him into the air twice. That was his way of bidding the 
man good-bye. 

‘He’ll work now,’ said Dessa to the planter. ‘Have 
I leave to go?’ 

The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. 
Moti Guj went back to haul stumps. 

Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy 
and forlorn notwithstanding. Chihun gave him balls of 
spices, and tickled him under the chin, and Chihun’s 
little baby cooed to him after work was over, and 
Chihun’s wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a 
bachelor by instinct, as Deesa was. He did not under- 
stand the domestic emotions. He wanted the light of his 
universe back again—the drink and the drunken slumber, 
the savage beatings and the savage caresses 

None the less he worked well, and the planter won- 
dered. Deesa had vagabonded along the roads till he 
met a marriage procession of his own caste and, drinking, 
dancing, and tippling, had drifted past all knowledge of 
the lapse of time. 

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there 
returned no Deesa. Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes 
for the daily stint. He swung clear, looked round, 
shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away, as one 
having business elsewhere. 

‘Hi! ho! Come back, you,’ shouted Chihun. ‘Come 
back, and put me on your neck, Misborn Mountain. Re- 


352 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


turn, Splendour of the Hillsides. Adornment of all 
India, heave to, or [’ll bang every toe off your fat fore- 
foot!’ 

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun 
ran after him with a rope and caught him up. Moti Guj 
put his ears forward, and Chihun knew what that meant, 
though he tried to carry it off with high words. 

‘None of your nonsense with me,’ said he. ‘To your 
pickets, Devil-son.’ 

‘Hrrump!’ said Moti Guj, and that was all—that 
and the forebent ears. 

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a 
branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, 
making jest of the other elephants, who had just set to 
work. 

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, 
who came out with a dog-whip and cracked it furiously. 
Moti Guj paid the white man the compliment of charging 
him nearly a quarter of a mile across the clearing and 
‘Hrrumping’ him into the verandah. Then he stood out- 
side the house chuckling to himself, and shaking all over 
with the fun of it, as an elephant will. 

‘We'll thrash him,’ said the planter. ‘He shall have 
the finest thrashing that ever elephant received. Give 
Kala Nag and Nazim twelve foot of chain apiece, and tell 
them to lay on twenty blows.’ 

Kala Nag—which means Black Snake—and Nazim 
were two of the biggest elephants in the lines, and one of 
their duties was to administer the graver punishments, 
since no man can beat an elephant properly. 

They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in 
their trunks as they sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to 
hustle him between them. Moti Guj had never, in all 
his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped, and he did not 


MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER 353 


intend to open new experiences. So he waited, weaving 
his head from right to left, and measuring the precise 
spot in Kala Nag’s fat side where a blunt tusk would 
sink deepest. Kala Nag had no tusks; the chain was 
his badge of authority; but he judged it good to swing 
wide of Moti Guj at the last minute, and seem to appear 
as if he had brought out the chain for amusement. 
Nazim turned round and went home early. He did not 
feel fighting-fit that morning, and so Moti Guj was left 
standing alone with his ears cocked. 

That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti 
Guj rolled back to his inspection of the clearing. An 
elephant who will not work, and is not tied up, is not 
quite so manageable as an eighty-one ton gun loose in a 
heavy sea-way. He slapped old friends on the back and 
asked them if the stumps were coming away easily; he 
talked nonsense concerning labour and the inalienable 
rights of elephants to a long ‘nooning’; and, wandering 
to and fro, thoroughly demoralized the garden till sun- 
down, when he returned to his pickets for food. 

‘If you won’t work you shan’t eat,’ said Chihun 
angrily. ‘You're a wild elephant, and no educated 
animal at all. Go back to your jungle.’ 

Chihun’s little brown baby, rolling on the floor of the 
hut, stretched its fat arms to the huge shadow in the 
doorway. Moti Guj knew well that it was the dearest 
thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with 
a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw 
itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled 
up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet 
above his father’s head. 

‘Great Chief!’ said Chihun. ‘Flour cakes of the best, 
twelve in number, two feet across, and soaked in rum 
shall be yours on the instant, and two hundred pounds’ 


354 LIFE’S HANDICAP 


weight of fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith. Deign 
only to put down safely that insignificant brat who is my 
heart and my life to me.’ 

Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between 
his forefeet, that could have knocked into toothpicks all 
Chihun’s hut, and waited for his food. He ateit, and the 
brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed, and thought 
of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with the 
elephant is that his huge body needs less sleep than any- 
thing else that lives. Four or five hours in the night 
suffice—two just before midnight, lying down on one side; 
two just after one o’clock, lying down on the other. 
The rest of the silent hours are filled with eating and 
fidgeting and long grumbling soliloquies. 

At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his 
pickets, for a thought had come to him that Deesa might 
be lying drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none 
to look after him. So all that night he chased through 
the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking 
his ears. He went down to the river and blared across 
the shallows where Deesa used to wash him, but there 
was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he dis- 
turbed all the elephants in the lines, and nearly frightened 
to death some gypsies in the woods. 

At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had 
been very drunk indeed, and he expected to fall into 
trouble for outstaying his leave. He drew a long breath 
when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were 
still uninjured; for he knew something of Moti Guj’s 
temper; and reported himself with many lies and salaams. 
Moti Guj had gone to his pickets for breakfast. His 
night exercise had made him hungry. 

‘Call up your beast,’ said the planter, and Deesa 
shouted in the mysterious elephant-language, that some 


MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER 355 


mahouts believe came from China at the birth of the 
world, when elephants and not men were masters. Moti 
Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They 
move from spots at varying rates of speed. If an ele- 
phant wished to catch an express train he could not 
gallop, but he could catch the train. Thus Moti Guj was 
at the planter’s door almost before Chihun noticed that 
he had left his pickets. He fell into Deesa’s arms 
trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and 
slobbered over each other, and handled each other from 
head to heel to see that no harm had befallen. 

‘Now we will get to work,’ said Deesa. ‘Lift me up, 
my son and my joy.’ 

Moti Guj swung him up and the two went to the 
coffee-clearing to look for irksome stumps. 

The planter was too astonished to be very angry. 


DENVOI 


My new-cut ashlar takes the light 

Where crimson-blank the windows flare; 
By my own work, before the night, 

Great Overseer, I make my prayer. 


If there be good in that I wrought, 

Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine; 
Where I have failed to meet Thy thought 

I know, through Thee, the blame is mine. 


One instant’s toil to Thee denied 
Stands all Eternity’s offence, 

Of that I did with Thee to guide 
To Thee, through Thee, be excellence. 


Who, lest all thought of Eden fade, 
Bring’st Eden to the crafisman’s brain, 
Godlike to muse o’er his own trade 
Aud Manlike stand with God again. 


The depth and dream of my desire, 
The bitter paths wherein I stray, 

Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, 
Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay. 


One stone the more swings to her place 
In that dread Temple of Thy Worth— 
It is enough that through Thy grace 
I saw naught common on Thy earth. 


Take not that vision from my ken; 
Oh whatso’er may spoil or speed, 
Help me to need no aid from men 
That I may help such men as need! 


356 











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